


In the Center, the Fifth

by nautilicious



Category: Fifth Element (1997), Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-13 18:58:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1237441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nautilicious/pseuds/nautilicious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every five thousand years evil enters our universe with one goal: to extinguish and destroy all life. Its time has come again and the universe needs a hero. Can one be found in 23rd Century London?</p><p>Retired United Federation Army soldier and doctor John Watson, wounded in action and haunted by war, has found a place in civilian life as a cab driver. At least, until the perfect fare crosses his path and turns his life upside down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_A bright light, explosions, a dark cloud reaching across the sky—_ John Watson sat up with a shout, the familiar tapestry of his nightmares unraveling behind his wide open eyes. He shuddered. Slowly the reality of his bedroom impressed itself on him, the familiar shapes and smells distant from the war in his dreams.

“March 24, 2413,” announced his clock. “8:00 am.”

John scowled at it. “You shut it,” he said. He mashed the button down and then reached for a cigarette — _disgusting habit, you were a doctor for chrissake_ — while he searched for a lighter. Ah, well. He’d nearly kicked the habit. Maybe tomorrow. The phone rang. “Not you, too,” he said. He crossed his tiny, modular flat and unearthed the receiver. Behind him, the bed automatically smoothed out and tucked itself away.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Yo,” answered a familiar voice. 

John opened the front door to let in the neighborhood cat. “Morning, sweetheart,” he said to her. She ran over to her bowl.

“Ugh,” Murray replied on the line. “Brings me back to basic training, Captain, and not in a good way.”

“Not you,” John replied. “The cat.”

“How Three Colonies Watson has fallen,” Murray said. “The only pussy you can get is the four-legged kind.”

John rolled his eyes and dumped some food into the cat’s bowl. “What do you want, Murray?”

“I need you to bring in the cab,” Murray said. “You’re due for an overhaul.”

“Don’t need one,” John said. He turned on the tap. Brown water dribbled out. He let it run until it cleared, then filled a pan.

“Yes, you do,” Murray said. “I know how you drive.”

John put the water on the stove. “You know how I pilot,” he corrected. “I drive a cab now, not a fighter. Totally different.” He still hadn’t found a lighter so he lit his cigarette on the stove. The bitter taste cleared his head a bit. Two more drags and it would be down to the filter, so he breathed in with relish.

“It’s war out there every day,” Murray said. “Don’t think I don’t know it.”

John nodded at the truth in that. “Still,” he said. “Cab’s fine.”

“Sure it is,” Murray said. “But if you’ve got more than five points left on your license I’ll buy your cat a month of chow.”

“Not my cat,” John corrected.

“See you tonight,” Murray said, and hung up.

John sighed. The water boiled. He dropped in a tea capsule and removed the pan from the stove. The auto-burner stayed on so he thumped the stove until it went out. He poured half the tea into a clean ashtray for the cat and the rest into a a mug for himself. 

After a quick breakfast of soy flakes John tucked his things into various pockets and headed for the door. He turned on the TV for the cat. “Welcome to Paradise!” blared out the Fhloston Paradise commercial that had been saturating the channels recently. Sand, sun, clear blue water — sounded nice.

“Don’t watch all day, kitty,” he said. She meowed. “Once more into the breach,” he muttered, and opened the door.

A young man stood in the hallway. John’s eyes flickered over him in automatic triage. Skinny, underage, unwashed, strung out — no, the acrid scent of withdrawal. Undernourished. And of course, the gun, large and humming with lethal force.

“Give me the cash!”

“Cash?” John replied. “No one carries cash anymore.”

“You’re a cabbie, you’ve got tips. Give em to me!” He bared his teeth and John revised his diagnosis based on the bleeding gums. The man — kid, probably not even legal — waved the gun at John.

“Take it easy,” John said, slowly raising his arms. “Hey, isn’t that a Z140 titanium assault model?”

“Uhm,” he replied.

“You know,” John said, “You could really hurt someone with this thing. Lucky for me it isn’t loaded.”

The kid stuttered out a nervous laugh. “What do you mean?”

“You have to push the yellow button,” John said, gesturing carefully. “That one.” 

The kid’s hands shook as he tried to hold up the gun and press the button at the same time. His trembling finger flicked the button and the hum of the gun died.

John moved fast, sweeping his leg behind the kid’s knees and grabbing the gun. The kid went down and John reached behind him with one hand. “You know,” he said, pulling down a storage module tucked just inside his doorway, “these things are dangerous. And illegal.” He tossed the gun in with a small arsenal of similar weapons. “I’ll just keep it safe for you.” Then John stepped over him and walked down the hall. Just before hitting the elevator, he turned. The kid hadn’t moved.

“If you want to get clean, go to the clinic on Harley Street. Tell them Doctor Watson sent you.”

* * *

“Please Enter Your License,” said the cab.

John slid the plastic card into the slot. The engine whined, gyros humming and turbines spinning up. He didn’t like the sound of that whine, actually — maybe Murray had a point. 

“Welcome On Board Mr Watson” said the cab.

“Sleep well?” John asked, settling into the familiar routine of checking fuel levels and propulsion settings. “I had a crap dream. The usual, but with extra creepy black smoke at the end.”

Murray, the audience for hundreds of pre-flight conversations, wasn’t there to answer, and the cab wasn’t programmed to. John rubbed his forehead a moment. “I think the explosion is still reverberating in my skull.”

“You Have Five Points Left On Your License.”

“Thank you so much for reminding me,” John grumbled.

The garage bay doors opened. John clicked the lever into drive and the cab slid off the ramp and into the air. Twenty-third century London spread out beneath him. From up here, the shine of sunlight on sleek buildings of metal and glass belied the truth of the trash and sludge underpinning the city. John maneuvered the cab into the long line of traffic, ignoring the cars in the lanes above and below with the ease of long practice. Time to find a fare.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I now have the kind and brilliant [patternofdefiance](http://patternofdefiance.tumblr.com/) as my beta for this story and I'm the luckiest writer in the world.

The elderly woman in the back of the cab paused in her recitation of complaints to point at a door across two lanes of traffic and exclaim: “oh, wait, you’re about to pass it!” John bit back a curse and yanked the steering wheel hard to the left, cutting across both lanes. He expertly avoided a sideswipe and a rear-end collision and stopped exactly in front of the door.

“Oh my,” said the woman. “Did they teach you that in cab driver school?”

“No,” John said, “in the war.”

“My grandson served,” she told him as she gathered up her things. “Came home crazy.” She eyed him from underneath her hat. “Looks like you came home a little crazy, too.”

It surprised him into laughing. “Yeah, looks like,” he said, “though I think you have to start out a little crazy to go to war in the first place.” 

He helped her to the door, ignoring both her chatter and the curses from the drivers forced to swerve around the cab. After she paid the fare she dropped her eyes to her hands, clutched around the straps of her handbag. “I’m on a fixed income,” she said.

John shrugged, keeping his expression mild despite his irritation. “Be well,” he told her, and returned to the cab and its empty tip jar. He gunned the engine perhaps a bit more than necessary as he merged back into traffic. He’d seen loads of patients like her during his short stint working in a civilian clinic; he handled them better in the cab.

He decided to cruise in the higher altitudes for a while. Only the well-off could afford the spacious, clean buildings and the clear air of the upper city; he could use a well-paying fare. Just as he got settled into a nice traffic circle in the 400-stories, something crashed into him. The impact came from above and he ducked instinctively.

“You Have Just Had An Accident,” the cab notified him.

“No shit!” he snapped, grappling with the wheel. The cab careened through traffic as he fought to stabilize the gyros. He maneuvered quickly, dodging other cars until he could pull to a stop. He took a moment to focus on his breathing, fighting down the old panic. The cab informed him of the removal of four points from his license but he ignored it while he struggled to convince his body that he wasn’t under attack.

Then he turned to evaluate the damage. To his surprise, he saw someone lying in the back of the cab, their body sprawled at an awkward angle. He lowered the glass separating the driver and passenger compartment, then reached back and grasped the closest wrist. The delicate bones beneath his fingers did not shift, so nothing broken there. The strength of her pulse surprised him: strong and steady, barely elevated despite a fall of who knew how many stories.

“Where does it hurt?” he asked, preparing to hop into the backseat for triage. The angle of her left leg worried him. Before he could get closer, she sat up. John caught his breath. He’d never seen eyes that shade of green, slanted bright above cheekbones that echoed cathedrals with their impossible arch. John felt stunned by the sheer beauty of — _Oh._

White fabric banded a lithe, masculine body in a kind of harness, revealing what seemed like acres of smooth skin. The fabric showcased the man’s slim, muscled limbs, as sleek and fine-boned as any woman John had known, and John’s mouth felt dry. John licked his lips. His soldier mind, still searching for perceived danger, and his medical mind, worried about his patient, faded to soft static as he stared into those eyes.

John realized he’d gotten unacceptably distracted and kicked his professionalism — for both skill sets — back online. “Your leg,” he blurted. “Does it hurt?” John dragged his eyes away from all that skin to peer at the fabric striping across it. “Is that thermal bandaging? Where’ve you been, then?”

“Akina delutan,” the man replied. “Nou shan. Djela.” He raised an eyebrow. “Boom.”

“Boom?” asked John.

The man’s lips twitched as though he might smile. “Bada boom,” he said.

John grinned. “You are right about that.”

That strange, clear-eyed gaze darted across John, the cab, the streets outside. The man combed long fingers through his hair, which did nothing to tame the riotous tangle of bright ginger curls, and touched the back of his head with a frown. John noticed a geometric tattoo on his left wrist. The man nodded. “Tsouk,” he said, holding up his arm to display four squares of dotted lines, three vertical and one horizontal. John ignored the tattoo in favor of the blood on the man’s fingertips.

“You’ve got a head wound,” he said. “I need to take a look at it.”

The man nodded at John and then began to speak with excitement: “Melaloy-re taktad de Mondoshawan.” His hands flashed through the air in wild gestures that did nothing to help John understand the torrent of gibberish.

“Calm down. Hey. Can you just–” John held up a hand in a “stop” gesture, then put his finger to his lips and shushed him, to no avail. “Ok, I see that you can’t. Are you always like this, or have you gone off your head with a concussion?”

John reached forward and grasped the man’s jaw, tilting his face into the light filtering through the hole of the cab’s roof. The torrent of words stopped. John brought their faces close enough to observe the man’s pupils contract, then slowly widen. The sun illuminated those incredible eyes, green-blue and gorgeous, and John realized he could feel the other man’s breath against his cheek. His fingertips belatedly registered firm skin, petal-soft. John had never felt anything like it.

John swallowed, then forced himself to look away. Blood seeped from a cut slashed into the fullness of the man’s bottom lip, and John gently wiped it away with his thumb. “Shouldn’t talk with a split lip,” John said. He felt the the man’s pulse dance under his fingers, felt his own pulse thrum in response.

A flurry of red and blue lights drew his attention to the street and the police cruiser hovering beside the cab. “YOU HAVE AN UNAUTHORIZED PASSENGER,” it informed him, its robotic announcement gratingly loud. “WE ARE GOING TO ARREST HIM. PLEASE PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE WHEEL. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.”

John released the man with some reluctance and turned back to the wheel. He’d driven past enough crime scenes to know that the Met took itself quite seriously. He did not want to be the focus of their attention, especially with some of the modifications Murray had made to the cab. “I’m sorry,” he said. He pressed his lips together. “They seem to want a word with you.”

The police cruiser’s door opened to reveal a net on hydraulics, complete with automatic handcuffs. John glanced in the rearview mirror. The man stared at the cruiser as though his force of will could remove it. Then he turned to John. His expression held both disdain and appeal. _I’ve got better things to do than this,_ John imagined him saying. _Don’t give me to them._

“I’m a doctor,” John shouted out the window. “This man has cranial trauma with possible neurological complications; I don’t advise moving him without a stretcher. Let me get him to a hospital.” The cruiser’s PA screeched to life. “MEDICAL CARE WILL BE PROVIDED. PLEASE OPEN YOUR PASSENGER DOOR.” John’s hands gripped the steering wheel.

“Damn it,” John said under his breath. “I guess this is your ride.” He pressed the button that released the passenger door. A clang announced that the cruiser had magnetized its anchor to the roof of the cab. The slow clank of the net deploying echoed from the buildings. The man coiled into readiness, his gaze quick and controlled, and John shook his head. “Don’t,” he said. “You’re in no condition to fight.”

The man’s alien gaze snapped to John’s, the fury in it obvious, and then his expression softened. He pointed towards one of the many stickers plastered across the surfaces of the cab. The sticker showed a child with wide, pleading eyes, the number for the orphan’s hotline, and the words “Please Help.”

John’s mouth twisted. “I can’t help you,” he said, heart heavy. “I only have one point left on my license.” The man in the backseat pointed at the sticker again, his voice stumbling through the syllables of the words. A light sheen of mist filled his eyes and John realized he’d mirrored the child’s expression. John suspected the man had conjured up the gloss of tears, but he couldn’t tell for certain. It tugged at him despite himself. John turned his body to face the back seat. “I really can’t. They’d catch us and then we’d both be in for it.”

The man pointed to another sticker, one with a photo of a hospital bed surrounded by medical staff, and then to John. “Well, yes, I am a doctor, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to interfere with the police.” The man touched his head, then showed John his bloody fingers. He tapped the words, “Please Help,” and left a smear of red across them.

John felt himself wavering. He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to firm up his resolve, when the man tilted his head and examined John. The intensity of his gaze raced across John’s skin like an electric shock, raised the small hairs on his arms. The man lifted an eyebrow, and then pointed to an advert for the United Federation Army. A young man stood in a crisp uniform, his cocky grin inviting the viewer to untold adventure. The man gave John the same grin, his expression matching that of the soldier, his meaning transparent. _One last adventure, why not?_

John pressed his thumb against the bridge of his nose. He shouldn’t. At the end of the day, he should return to his cramped, dirty flat, tuck away his paltry tips, and smoke his last rationed cigarette with the television for company. Tomorrow, more of the same: humoring old ladies and pandering to rich ones in hopes of making a few extra quid. He’d been a doctor and a soldier, for fuck’s sake, working for the betterment of humanity, and now his life had narrowed to scoring a good fare.

He looked at the gleam in the stranger’s eyes. John once led missions concocted from paltry intelligence, fueled by adrenaline and craziness, and achieved through sheer bloody-mindedness. The spark he saw in those green eyes matched the one he’d seen in the mirror before every drop. _What the hell,_ John thought. Only the cat would miss him.

John nodded firmly. The man’s face lit up, his eyes crinkled at the corners and his mouth stretched into a crooked smile so full of delight and mischief that John felt a tiny, warm curl of happiness unfurl in his chest. “Murray is going to kill me,” John said, but his hand turned off the meter anyway.

“THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION,” announced the cruiser.

John pressed the null-override switch under the dash, eroding the magnetics of the cruiser’s lock on the cab. “You’re welcome,” he said. He hit the button to close the passenger door, and floored it. The gyros groaned but the cab wrung itself free. The cruiser’s lock released with a jerk and the cruiser spun off, knocking into the side of a building two stories below. John heard the PA squawking but couldn’t make out the words over the excited whoop of his passenger and the cab announcing, “One Point Has Been Removed From Your License.”

He rolled his eyes, and then brought all his attention to the road. He rocketed around the corner, down and over five stories, trying to put the flashing lights of the cruiser as many turns behind him as possible. The surrounding drivers honked and cursed at him. “You Have No Points Left on Your License,” the cab continued. “You Are Unauthorized To Operate This Vehicle. Would You Please…”

John reached up and ripped the speaker out of the ceiling of the cab. “Can’t drive with all that ruckus,” he said. “It’s a wonder I made it this long.”

John zoomed past a cluster of fast-food joints and cursed when he heard a new siren sound behind him. He should have known that there’d be a cruiser bellied up to the drive-through. He made quick turns and level changes, slashing over lanes of traffic and doubling back to rise up a few more stories. The sirens fell away and he slowed to an idle, looking to ensure he’d lost them.

“If they don’t chase you after a mile they don’t chase you,” John said smugly. “And my cab broadcasts a fake ID so they can’t track us with the city monitors.” He glanced towards the backseat and verified that his passenger had survived the escape without further injury. Then he turned the corner and six cruisers burst out of an alleyway behind him.

“Maybe it’s two miles,” he muttered, and engaged the turbines to maximum.

“Itou malena palela fer kiko hammas,” said the man.

“Yeah, this’ll be a little tricky,” John said.

The police cruisers divided to surround the cab. “Ok,” John said. “Here we go. Hang on!”

He threw the cab into a twist, swimming through traffic towards a rooftop garden far below. The cruisers followed. He ignored the shouting from the rear of the cab; the man probably wasn’t enjoying the rough ride but he wouldn’t be hurt by it. John let the cab surge forward until the gyros whined with it and then pulled up at the last minute. Two cruisers spun out and buried themselves into the dirt of the garden. John drove, heading for the denser traffic patterns of the center city.

“Dom kozoul, yaknan kulka,” the man said with some heat.

“Look,” John said, “not to be rude, but now is not a good time for conversation.” The remaining cruisers gained on him. An alarm in the cab beeped. John looked over to see the words “attack mode” scrolling across the screen. “I don’t know what you did to get them so bloody interested--” he grimaced as the text on the screen announced weapons engagement “–-but they are bloody well interested!”

He had no idea if the cab could even perform one of his favorite combat shuttle tricks, but he went for it anyway, doubling the spin on the gyros while engaging the braking blasters. The cab groaned, rattling alarmingly as it threw itself into the turn. “Ok,” he said. “Maybe that did it.” Then he looked in the rearview mirror. Two of the cruisers remained. “Or not.” He bit his lip. An idea flashed across his mind. “The smog. We’ll be safe in the smog– if we can reach it.” He snapped his fingers at his passenger.

“Oi! Put your goddamned harness on!” John tightened his with exaggerated emphasis. To his relief, the man snapped his into place. “Chest too,” John said, tapping his own harness. “Now!”

John took a deep breath. “No one ever expects a fall,” he muttered, and cut the hoverjets.

He pushed the stick all the way forward and let gravity accelerate him, hurtling in an insane swan-dive towards the ground. The sounds around him faded as he put his full concentration on swerving through the countless layers of traffic patterns. He waited until he could see the garbage covering the street before turning the hoverjets back on. His body jerked against the harness with the sudden upthrust, and he pulled the wheel hard to stabilize the cab. It took only a few turns before the fetid methane of London’s smog enclosed the vehicle.

When another turn brought him to a dead end, the tone of the gibberish from the rear of the cab crossed language barriers just fine. “Seriously,” John said. “I’d think by now you’d have figured out I don’t need advice on how to drive.” He looped the cab back around and drove a few more minutes until he found what he wanted. He monkeyed with the controls – Murray’s modifications went well beyond the cab’s design parameters – and flipped the cab onto its end between a billboard and an alley wall.

“No one comes down here,” John said, gesturing towards the trash piled high enough to cover the original buildings of the city. “We ought to be safe.”

The man laughed, a sound of pure delight, and John glanced back at him. He laughed with his whole body, his expression unguarded, his laugh infectious. John couldn’t help responding to it, a wild giggle erupting from his throat. John’s body still felt infused with adrenaline, his skin flushed and warm. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever done,” John said.

“Dalutan,” the man said his tone serious though his mouth quirked in a smile.

John’s senses, on alert from the chase, took in both the twinkle in the man’s eye and the way his skin had paled. John reached back and caught his wrist. The man’s pulse trembled in a way it hadn’t after crashing through the roof of the cab, and John studied him, frowning . “Are you okay?” he asked.

The man gripped John’s hand with shaky fingers. “Priest,” he said. His skin felt damp.

“No, I’m a doctor,” John said. “I can take you to a hospital–”

“Priest,” the man said again. “Cor-nee-lee-oose. Hol-mmms.”

It sounded like a name. “Cornelius Holmes?” John asked.

The man nodded, then fainted dead away.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Patternofdefiance kicks my writing into shape so well, y'all, you have no idea.

John kicked the door with his foot. His burden felt light, for all that the long body draped in his arms had some inches in height on John. Still, he wanted to put him down soon; it worried him that the man hadn’t returned to consciousness. The door opened, revealing a tall, slender man in brown robes. “Yes?” he asked.

“I’m looking for a priest,” John said.

The man’s eyes ran over John, then tilted his head and sniffed through his long, bulbous nose with a clear sound of dismissal. “Weddings are one floor down, my son,” he said. John lifted his eyebrows; the priest looked to be close to his own age. “Congratulations,” the priest said dryly, and closed the door.

John kicked the door again, hard enough to force it open.

“I’m not getting married,” he said. “He’s injured. Last thing he asked me to do was find a priest, Cornelius Holmes. Directory says he lives here.”

“I am he,” the priest said, “but I’ve never seen him before.” Holmes’ eyes darted over the man — skimpy thermal bandages, grime, and the shock of bright orange hair — “I would have remembered. Where did you meet him?”

“We sort of ran into each other,” John said. “Can I put him on the couch, please?”

Holmes nodded and John got his mystery man settled without mishap, though his arm dropped to the side. Holmes’ eyes focused on the tattoo and he gasped. “The Fifth Element," he breathed out, barely audible, and then he swayed, pitched forward, and sank to the floor.

“Whoa,” John said. “Easy.” Holmes’ pulse felt elevated, his skin cold. “Breathe. C’mon, Cornelius, stay with me.”

“Mycroft,” the priest said, eyes closed.

“Seriously?” John asked. “You prefer that to Cornelius?”

Mycroft looked up at John. “My father was Cornelius. I inherited his artifacts and his sacred office; it seemed a bit much to use his name as well.” The color slowly returned to his face. He glanced over at the man on the couch and gripped John’s arm. “The Fifth — tell me everything about him,” he said.

John helped Mycroft stand. “I don’t know much,” John said. “He crashed into my cab. Not sure what language he speaks; never heard anything like it.”

“Of course you wouldn’t have,” Mycroft said, his lips pressing into a thin line. “It’s the Divine Language, spoken throughout the Universe before there was Time. He is literally the most perfect being ever to exist, and humanity’s most precious possession; he’s not likely to be spouting anything as common as any language found on Earth.”

“Well, he can’t be all that perfect,” John said, “because he’s managed to get himself wanted by the cops.”

Mycroft looked affronted. “Well,” he said. “I’m sure there’s a good reason for it.” He stared at the unconscious man a moment longer. “You’re a doctor, aren’t you?” he demanded. “Wake him up. Gently!” Before John could ask how he knew, Mycroft swirled out of the room. “Oi!” John heard a new voice exclaim, and then the sound of a quick conversation.

John knelt by the couch. Nothing in his world had ever been perfect. He’d known many kind, brave, strong men and women, the kind of people he’d risked his life to protect, but most of them brought new and exciting innovations to the realms of the screwed up and maladjusted. Perfection did not exist, and searching for it only led to disappointment.

He checked the man’s pulse; it had steadied. The wound on his head no longer bled. John lightly pressed his fingers to the man’s cheek, checking his color. His gaze lingered on the man’s lips, the sweeping ridges of his collarbones, and the beguiling tilt of his eyes. The word precious also had little application to anything in John’s life, but he found himself cupping the man’s face without knowing he intended to. “Hello,” he whispered. “It’s time to wake up.”

Like earlier, his mind drifted silent, his thoughts overtaken by the feeling of impossibly smooth skin, the soft crinkle of a curl against the pads of his fingers, the sweet scent on the man’s breath. John leaned in, feeling as though the sheer presence of him, even unconscious, drew him forward. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to ghost a kiss across those plump, soft lips.

The man’s eyes snapped open, and John felt a familiar bite of cold metal against his temple. His gun, snatched from its holster so fast John hadn’t seen it, communicated a clear message. John’s brain crashed back online. He sat back slowly, put his hands in the air. “I’m so sorry,” he said. His cheeks felt hot.

“Eto akta gamut,” the man said, his eyes fierce.

“That was completely out of line,” John said. “I’ve never–” He grimaced, knowing that nothing he said could make up for what he’d done. “I’m sorry.”

The man lowered the gun. He brought his fingers to his mouth and brushed the skin there, unabashedly stroking where John had kissed. The gesture seemed at once innocent and sensual, and John swallowed. Not seconds after molesting his patient, he already wanted to do it again. Christ, his wires had gotten crossed around this man.

“Akta gamut,” the man said again.

“I know,” John said. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.” He licked his lips. “We haven’t even been introduced. I’m John Watson.” He reached towards his pocket and the man raised the gun. “No, I want to give you something.” John pointed to his pocket, waited for the man to relax his grip on the weapon, then retrieved a small card with his name and number on it.

“If you need me to check on your injuries or need a lift anywhere. And not just because of the, err.” John gestured vaguely towards his mouth. “I hope you learn English because I’d really like to hear your story. And apologize properly.”

The man took the card. John saw him mouthing the syllables of his name. “John,” he said.

John nodded. “That’s it. And you?”

The man furrowed his brow, tilted his head. John pointed to himself, said his name, then pointed at the man. After a beat, the man inhaled sharply, his mouth round, and erupted with sounds: “Sherleeloo Minai Lockarariba-laminai T’chai Ekbat de Sebat.”

John blinked. “That’s, ah, quite a mouthful. Are you called anything shorter?”

Again the head tilt. John pointed at himself, said, “John Watson,” and then brought his fingers together as though compressing something. “John.” He repeated it, and saw the man understand.

“Sher…Lock?” he said.

“Sherlock,” John repeated. Sherlock smiled, as unexpected and bright as a firework, and John felt breathless. He didn’t know how long they stood, smiling at each other like fools, before Mycroft strode into the room.

He’d changed into a set of velvet robes, topped with a gold stole and a large amulet. Another man followed, silver-haired and a bit older, wearing simpler robes. Both wore jewelry emblazoned with the markings of Sherlock’s tattoo. Sherlock leveled John’s gun at them and the priests stopped in their tracks.

“Appipulai,” Mycroft said, then grandly rattled off the syllables of Sherlock’s name. He showed Sherlock a filigreed object he carried that John could only assume was ceremonial. Sherlock seemed relieved to see it.

Sherlock lowered the gun. “Corneilus?” he asked.

Mycroft wrinkled his nose. “Mycroft,” he said, and bowed.

“Well, he’s a fox, isn’t he?” asked the other priest. “Are you sure he’s the Supreme Being?”

“Of course,” Mycroft snapped. “Surely you noticed the Four Elements on his wrist.”

“Could be faked,” he replied.

Mycroft puffed himself up like an owl. “I would never be fooled, Gregory, and I resent your implication.”

Gregory shot John a sideways grin, and then shrugged at Mycroft. “Always worth asking the question.” John appreciated his no-nonsense, rugged appeal, more friendly than Mycroft’s air of refined snobbery.

“Greg Lestrade,” he said, offering John his hand. John gave his name and they shook hands. Greg had a firm, steady grip.

Sherlock nodded to Mycroft. The soft expression he’d shared with John had vanished. Sherlock raked Mycroft with an intense, evaluating gaze. He launched into a flood of words. Mycroft’s eyes widened. He tried to interject a few times but Sherlock rolled right over him. John watched with a mix of amusement and frustration. “Anywhere I could brush up on his language?”

Greg grinned. “Not really. Takes decades to learn, and I think you have to be linguistically-minded. But he’ll speak English soon enough, from what I understand.”

The two men watched Sherlock begin to punctuate his monologue with wild gestures. John recognized a couple of them from the cab. Sherlock seemed to be getting more agitated as he spoke. John shuffled his feet. He ought to go, but he the itch of unsatisfied curiosity kept him in place.

“Um. Been a priest long?” he asked.

Greg shot him an amused glance. “Since uni. Not born to it like that one. Was going to be a cop, but then I decided that if the Fifth Element legend was true I’d better serve by saving the universe. So thanks for bringing him to us,” he said. “It’s a wonderful thing you’ve done, truly.”

“You’re welcome,” John said.

“Yes, yes,” Mycroft said. “I’m sure that Doctor Watson can rest well this evening in the knowledge of a job well done, and now it’s time for him to be going.” He gave John a pointed look.

“I insist on coming back to check on his injuries tomorrow,” John said. “Since I brought him here instead of to a hospital.”

“He will be fine,” Mycroft said. "You needn’t concern yourself further with the matter.” He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture.

John crossed his arms. “I wouldn’t tell you how to do priest things; don’t tell me how much I should or shouldn’t be concerned about someone who _fell through the roof of a cab_ and has a head injury. I will check on Sherlock tomorrow, or I’ll tell the cops where to find him, because they at least will ensure he gets proper medical care.”

“You call him ‘Sherlock?” Mycroft asked, his tone incredulous. “Do you have any idea the layers of meaning in each syllable of the Fifth Element’s name?” Mycroft drew himself up to his full height, eyes flashing, but Greg put his hand on Mycroft’s arm. John could see Mycroft biting back whatever rant he’d intended to deliver, his expression pinched.

“Hey, John, it’s alright,” Greg said, “We appreciate your concern. You can come back tomorrow. Just call first, yeah? We’ve got a lot to catch up on with, um, Sherlock.”

John turned towards Sherlock. He seemed to have recovered well, all things considered, but his eyes looked sad. “Are you okay here? I can take you somewhere else,” John said. “Or I can stay.”

Sherlock nodded. “Gamut,” he said.

“You said that earlier,” John said. He turned to Mycroft. “Akta gamut?”

“Never without my permission,” Mycroft replied icily. John suspected he’d just confirmed something for Mycroft that he’d rather not have revealed. He licked his lips nervously and immediately regretted it.

“But he gave you permission to go just then,” Greg said.

“All right,” John said. “Make sure he drinks lots of water and gets some protein in his system. And rest, of course.”

“Don’t worry,” Greg said, and John nodded. It wasn’t until after Greg closed and locked the flat's door behind him that he realized Sherlock still had his favorite gun.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Patternofdefiance continues to improve my writing. I'm learning loads from her and you all reap the benefit. (Seriously, she's amazing. Go read some of her [stories!](http://archiveofourown.org/users/patternofdefiance/pseuds/patternofdefiance))

After a short flight home, keeping a careful eye out for cop cruisers, John settled the cab in its garage. The cab’s diagnostics reported some upset about its earlier treatment, not to mention the fact that Murray would have to repaint it and reset the ID randomizer. Time to face the music on that one.

He took the elevator up a hundred stories. His flat looked small and shabby but at least he lived above the worst of the smell. On a clear day he even had a decent view— mostly residences and shops, but to the west he could see a sliver of a terrace garden. Sometimes it had flowers.

He passed his down-the-hall neighbor, a bulky man with a perpetual scowl, in the hall. “Afternoon,” he said.

“Fuck you,” the neighbor replied, par for the course. Today John didn’t really care.

When he opened the door to his flat the cat came running, rubbing against his leg and yowling. “Christ, I forgot your food,” John said. He knelt and gently dug his fingers into the fur behind her ears. “I’ll order Thai; will that make it up to you?” He felt tired of apologizing already and he still had to talk to Murray. The cat purred while John made the order. He’d just put down the phone when it rang again.

“Murray,” he said.

“So I’ve been at the garage all day thinking you’d show. What gives, Captain?”

“Yeah, about that,” John said. “You would not believe the kind of day I’ve had.”

“I’m all ears. But this story had better not end with the kind of destruction I know that you’re capable of.”

“Minimal destruction only.” John rubbed the back of his head. “Though you will need to reset the ID randomizer.”

“Shit, you got into it with the cops?”

“No getting into anything. Getting away. Bloody cleverly away, actually.”

“I know your version of ‘bloody clever.’ How much damage?”

John sat down on the bed. “It’s fine. Really. A tune-up ought to set it to rights. And, er, a paint job.”

Murray sighed. “So what happened?”

“I was on my way over when this guy crashed into the cab—“

“Crashed! Captain—“

“No, it’s ok. Only the roof,” John said quickly.

Murray made a choked noise.

“The cops were after him and—“

“And of course you didn’t turn him over, bloody Bleeding-Heart Watson.” John heard the rustling of Murray rolling one of his illegal cigs. It reminded him that he had only one left for the day. He considered smoking it but decided to save it for after dinner. He spotted a matchbox tucked under some papers and fiddled with it.

“I don’t know what to say, Murray. There’s something about him. This kind of wild charisma. Remember that guy from the Angel constellation? Could make you do mad things just by giving you a grin?"

“Harkness,” Murray said. “Yeah. Lucky bastard. Killer with the ladies. With everyone, really. I’d have given a lot to have his pull."

“Sherlock is like that, though maybe without the death wish,” John said. “Not so handsome as Harkness, more on the exotic end, you know, all creamy skin and cheekbones and– hair.” John twisted his fingers in the air near his head as though that could convey Sherlock’s untamed ginger curls to Murray over the phone. “He’s a fighter, amazingly resilient, took a lot of damage and kept going. And he’s got these incredible eyes. It was like he read every mark on me. Like he _knew._ We don’t even share a language but something about him called to me. I had to help him.”

“Sounds like a walking ad for trouble,” Murray said. “Or a poster boy for sex; never heard you you gush about a bloke before. Must’ve been something to get you looking over to my side of the fence.”

John rolled his eyes. “I’m not gushing. Just trying to explain. You’d have felt the same.”

Murray chuckled. “Well, of course I would have.”

John heard the click of Murray’s lighter, his slow inhale. It made his fingers twitchy. He lit a match, watched it burn. “Those are going to kill you,” he said absently.

“Yes, Doctor, I know. Unless you give me a heart attack first. Just how much trouble are you in?”

John shook his head. “They didn’t ID me.”

“No, I meant with this Sherlock. He gonna drag you into something?”

John thought about the glint in Sherlock’s eyes, how swiftly he’d gotten his hands on a weapon, Mycroft’s insistence that John leave, the mysterious regalia.

“I think he already has.” John lay back on the bed.

“So maybe it was Mad Captain Danger-Slut Watson driving today,” Murray said. He sounded resigned. “This bodes ill for my business, man.”

“I don’t have to get involved,” John said, only to be interrupted by Murray snorting. “I mean more involved. I’m just going to give him a check-up tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I believe that.” Murray paused. “You sound—good.”

John shrugged, lit another match. It burned the color of Sherlock’s hair. John let it burn nearly down to his skin. “It felt good to help someone,” he said at last. He heard Murray inhale, imagined him blowing out smoke, his heavy brows furrowed as he worried about John. He felt a moment of guilt for making Murray wear that expression so often.

“Ok,” Murray said. “Bring me the cab tomorrow. No screwing around. Then I’ll give you a lift to check on Sherlock. I sort of want to meet him myself.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. I figure I’m either going to want to punch him for enabling your adrenaline bullshit, or he’s going to be some kind of sex paragon and I’m going to want to shag him. It’s been way too long since I did either of those things.”

John smiled. He knew Murray could hear it in his voice. “Thanks.”

“No problem, Cap.”

John hung up the phone. He tucked the matchbox away and then folded his hands behind his head. He closed his eyes, letting the events of the day slide through his mind, all of them colorless and dull until Sherlock flared into his life like a shooting star. His body felt as though it had been in combat, muscles sore from the car chase, his hands peppered with small scrapes. His days no longer ended with someone else’s blood on his fingers; he couldn’t think of the last time he’d saved a life. It had been too long since he’d done something that mattered.

A knock at the window interrupted his musings. An antique flying junket hovered outside, its bronze fittings and red enamel gleaming in the late afternoon light. Steam billowed from the stove, smelling fantastic. The Thai had arrived.

John served the cat some rice noodles and then forked some into his mouth. “Delicious,” he told Mr. Kim, the cook. “How’s your daughter?”

“Much better,” Mr. Kim replied. “She say thank you.”

“No problem,” John said. “Gotta keep her healthy so that you can keep me supplied with noodles.”

“You should be doctor,” Mr. Kim said. “Traffic just getting worse. Too dangerous to drive cab anymore. I almost crash today.”

John shrugged. “It’s a living,” he said. He heard the thunk of a message landing in the relay tube behind him. He ignored it.

“Not going to open message?” Mr. Kim asked.

“Later,” John said. The telly, which had been playing a mellow neo-jazz set, started blaring that damned Gemini Croquettes contest commercial. John watched out of the corner of his eye, drawn for a moment by the images of gleaming sand and sparkling waves. The impossible blue of the ocean reminded him of the clear, watery shade of Sherlock’s eyes. John listened to a sultry woman extol the glories of Fhloston Paradise and then clicked off the telly with a shake of his head. The relaxation of sun and surf held much less appeal after the rush of today’s fancy flying and the adventures that might come when he next saw Sherlock.

“Paper message usually important,” Mr. Kim pointed out.

John pursed his lips. “Usually bad news, in my experience. Last message I got told me that my wife had died in the Glenrothes bombing.” 

Mr. Kim patted John’s arm. John could tell from Mr. Kim’s sympathetic expression that he’d just reclassified John from a typical bachelor to a devastated widow. John did not feel like correcting him. Mary and John had been in a slow drift away from one another months before the terrorist attack, but that had only made her loss more confusing, and John’s grief more unexpected. The familiar routines of the Army held him in the aftermath, but after Mary’s death the life that had fit him perfectly seemed mired in complexity. He never quite found solid ground again. John shook his head and gave Mr. Kim a wan smile. Better not to get into it

“Sad news,” Mr. Kim said. “But long time ago, yes? Grandfather say, ‘It can’t rain every day.’ Your turn for good luck! I bet you dessert.”

John retrieved the message and handed it to Mr. Kim, who read it with relish. “‘You are fired!’ Oh.”

John sighed. “Murray is going to kill me.”

Mr. Kim turned to the kitchen, sharpening his knife. “I make you number one dessert,” he said. “You feel better.”

The dessert looked alarming. John suspected it contained some kind of squid product, but it tasted mostly of honey. “Good honey,” he said.

“My daughter keep bees,” Mr. Kim told him.

“Huh,” John said. “I thought about doing that once. Had some leave on Chalice and got interested in it.” The memory spooled behind his eyes: the constant soft drone of bees, field after field of gorgeous, lush blossoms, the air redolent with tangy sweetness. The women rubbed it into their skin, making their kisses ambrosial.

“I bring you honey next time,” Mr. Kim promised.

John’s phone rang again. His phone hadn’t rung this often in months. He answered it and then wished he hadn’t.

“Johnny, you are a complete dirtbag!”

“Ah, Harry, hello to you too.” He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “This could take a while, Mr. Kim. Thanks for dessert.”

Mr. Kim nodded and steered his boat away from John’s window. John heard Mr. Kim’s energetic singing drift past as he merged into traffic.

“I’ve been eating those shitty croquettes for twenty years! You were always too good to eat them, even to help me out, and you win the big prize?” He recognized the tone of her rant and sighed. Definitely time for his last cigarette.

“After all I did for you!” John rolled his eyes, held a burning match to the end of the cig. “Are you listening, you ingrate?”

“Yes, I’m listening,” he said.

“If you don’t take me, I’ll never forgive you. I’ll hire a lower-level thug to break your kneecaps!”

“Take you where?” He took a slow pull on the cigarette.

“Are you taking the piss?”

“No, seriously Harry, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve had a hell of a day already and—“

“You just won the Fhloston Paradise giveaway, you idiot. Ten days! Ten days away from the smog and the traffic. You’ve got to take me with you.”

John frowned. He looked at the empty message tube. “No, if that’d happened I’d know. Someone would have notified me.”

“They’ve been blaring your name out on the radio, if you ever bothered to pay attention to anything important.”

The thunk of an incoming message turned his head. The cat leapt to the tube and batted at it. John moved the cat aside, preparing to fish out the message, when the doorbell rang. He walked over, checked the security monitor, and froze. He could think of no good reason for that particular man to have come, and a lot of bad ones.

“Harry, I’ll call you back.” He disconnected the phone, then threw it across the room. He paced back and forth twice. The doorbell rang again. He took a deep breath, blew it out, then yanked the door open.

“Major—ah, Colonel Sholto,” John said, belatedly noting the new rank on Sholto’s uniform. It still had the best fit John had ever seen on a soldier, every seam perfect, every crease precisely in place. It put the dingy residential hallway to shame.

Sholto held his body more stiffly than John remembered, his face expressionless. “Captain Watson.”

John could only handle that look for a few seconds. “Why are you here?”

Sholto glanced around the hallway. “This isn’t the place. May we come in?”

John considered refusing, but in the end he owed this man. He could listen. “All right.”

Sholto walked in, followed by a tall, aggressively fit Major that John didn’t know. The formal hairdo, woven through with ceremonial cord, marked her as Valkyriean and John blinked. He didn’t know if he should take it as a compliment that it took an elite hereditary warrior to replace him as Sholto’s second or if he should feel eradicated from his old position by someone who seemed his opposite in every way.

Sholto looked around the flat and John fought both the urge to wince and to stand at attention. John lived quite differently than he had previously, his instinct for order frequently overruled by the darker emotions he struggled with in civilian life. Sholto undoubtedly disapproved, and John tried not to care.

“It’s not what I would have expected,” Sholto said. “That you’d leave us full of silent condemnation and self-righteousness, and end up here in a squalid little box, fired from a pathetic job driving a cab.”

Now John did wince. Sholto’s voice remained steady but John could hear the pain in it. He wondered if the Valkyrie could. “I stand by my position, sir,” John said. “The war on Tevi Vorta was mismanaged. There’s no justification for the deaths of my soldiers.”

“We did the best we could in a difficult situation,” Sholto said. “Your soldiers died protecting innocents.”

“It wasn’t necessary and you know it,” John said hotly. “None of it was.”

Sholto took a breath to speak, then shook his head. “I didn’t come here to have this argument again. I have a job for you.”

John’s fist curled and uncurled slowly. “I’m retired.”

“Surely saving the world doesn’t conflict with your moral code?” Sholto asked sharply. They’d parted respectfully, John had thought, but Sholto’s tone informed him clearly that Sholto hadn’t forgiven him. 

“I’ve been asked to save the world before,” John said. “Including on Tevi Vorta.”

“Tevi Vorta was about Tevi Vorta,” Sholto said. “This is about all of them”

Sholto pulled a set of orders from his pocket. “Captain John Watson, you have been selected for a mission of vital importance. Your military status is, as of this moment, reactivated, with the field promotion of Major. You will proceed to Fhloston Paradise, retrieve four stones from the Diva Plavalaguna, and bring them to the designated rendezvous with utmost discretion.”

He extended the orders to John, who did not take them. After a pause, he handed them to the Valkyrie. She put it in the file she carried. Sholto stepped over to the message tube and pulled out the envelope.

“Don’t you check your messages?” he asked. He handed John two tickets. “You have won the annual Gemini Croquettes contest, a trip to Fhloston Paradise for two. Congratulations.” He handed the tickets to the Valkyrie. She tucked them into the cover of the file.

“You rigged the contest,” John said.

“Old tricks are the best tricks,” Sholto said, and the familiar phrase made John’s chest hurt. “You’ll take Major Izeborg with you. She can pose as your wife.”

“Nope,” John said, all sentimentality evaporating. “No offense, Major.” Izeborg nodded to him, a glint in her eye that John might have appreciated under other circumstances.

“Colonel, I am not accepting this.” John said.

Sholto gave John a long look, then turned towards Izeborg. “A moment, please, Major.” She put her back against the front door and Sholto crossed the small distance to the window. John tried not to think of the last time he and Sholto had spoken privately, but he felt the shadow of it between them.

“You were the best soldier I ever knew,” Sholto said quietly. “The right man for every job. You’re the right man for this job.” When John made no response, Sholto continued. “Where is the man who understood that good men break themselves against evil so that others don’t have to? Those of us who can be soldiers owe it to those who can’t.”

“You know that I agree with you about that,” John said. “It was never about being a soldier. It was about the honor of the United Federation’s armed forces. We shouldn’t have died for greed and lies.”

“War is always greed and lies,” Sholto said, and John felt tension crawl up his back. Sholto may have not come here to have their last argument again, but they seemed to be having it anyway.

“This mission, then? More greed and lies?”

Sholto shook his head. “No. This is a mission of a lifetime. The John Watson I served with would have jumped at the chance.”

John looked away. “He died under a pile of his friends’ bodies.”

“John,” Sholto said, his voice low. He put his hand on John’s arm, drew John’s gaze back to his face. “I’m asking you. To do the right thing. To come back.”

John swallowed. The roughness in Sholto’s voice threw him back to that last night in hospital. It began with shouts and ended with Sholto’s uniform scratching against John’s cheek, wet with John’s tears, Sholto’s arms wrapped firmly around him. John remembered Sholto’s breath against his temple, and, branded into his memory, the careful press of Sholto’s lips to John’s cheek. He wished he could forget what came next: his abrupt step away, the exchange of awkward words, the pain in Sholto’s eyes.

They hadn’t spoken since. John still didn’t know if he’d done the right thing or the cowardly thing. John respected and admired Sholto, felt a great deal for him as a mentor and a friend, could even admit to noticing his attractiveness, but he hadn’t felt any more or less drawn to Sholto than he had to Mary, and couldn’t face what that might mean about either of them. He’d spent most of the last six months avoiding thinking about it.

“It’s not about that. It never was,” John said, and saw from the tension in Sholto’s jaw that he knew what John meant. “I can’t just blindly follow orders any more. The price is too high.”

Sholto released John’s arm, his face shuttering into impassivity, and stepped back. “You are the best chance for this mission to succeed, and as such, do not have the right or the choice to deny the request.”

“You can’t draft me,” John said. “It’s not legal.”

Sholto smiled tightly. “In this case, I can. Your orders come straight from the Queen.”

John pressed his lips together. “And if I refuse the Queen?”

Sholto shook his head. “John–” He cut himself off. “Don’t.”

“No,” John said, feeling the heat of anger build in his gut. “I won’t be strong-armed, Sholto. It cost me a lot to walk away. You can’t expect me to just put it behind me.”

“Then don’t be strong-armed!” Sholto said fiercely. “Choose it. Select your own team, request any resource you need. You have complete control of the mission. I have done everything I can to make this palatable to you. I want to force you as little as you want to be forced.”

John stood, body ringing with tension, his urge to throw Sholto out on his arse warring with the siren song of a mission he could accept with a clear conscience. He struggled to think through the jumble of memory and anxiety clouding his mind. He opened his mouth to speak, not yet certain what he might say, when the doorbell rang.

He activated the security monitor automatically, his finger jabbing the button with enough force to hurt. He felt a sinking sensation in his belly to see Sherlock and Mycroft in the hall.

“Well, shit.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thanks to the lovely [patternofdefiance](http://archiveofourown.org/users/patternofdefiance) for her beta work.

John felt his adrenaline rise, torn between Sherlock and Mycroft on one side of the door and Sholto and Izeborg on the other. He considered his alternatives, mind working mission-fast. It felt so different from muddling through the daily decisions of which tea capsule to buy or what lousy food to reheat, and the sheer rightness of it threatened to overwhelm him.

“Colonel, I have a meeting I can’t miss,” John said. He let his face fall into the neutral expression he used to conceal anything from information to emotions. He hoped Sholto read it as the latter. It seemed like a very bad idea to have Sherlock and Sholto in the same room. “I have to ask you to leave.”

“I thought I made the circumstances clear,” Sholto said.

“You did. I need to think about it,” John said. Sholto started to speak but John continued. “I know time is critical. I’ll get back to you in two hours.”

Sholto looked as though he might object. John took a breath, felt himself go clear and still. He met Sholto’s eyes, thinking not of the graveyard of their jagged, unresolved emotions but of a friendship it would be shameful to allow misunderstanding to destroy. He tried to put that knowledge in his eyes. Sholto held his gaze for a long moment and then gave John a crisp nod.

“Two hours.” Sholto turned towards the door. Izeborg placed the folder on John’s desk and followed.

“Wait, Colonel.”

Sholto turned, his brow lifting slightly.

“You can’t go out that way,” John said. “You’ll spook my contact.”

“How exactly do you expect me to exit, then?” Sholto said. “There’s only one door.” The doorbell buzzed again and John had to get Sholto out of his flat _right now_.

“Have your transport come to the window.” John flung it open. “Quickly, please.”

John read the amusement underneath the annoyance on Sholto’s face and he knew that the Valkyrie wouldn’t see it. That mix of exasperated fondness had permeated their working relationship, and sensing it now made the previous cold and silent months ring even more hollow and lonely.

John stepped across the room and opened the door a crack.

“I’ll be right with you,” he said. “Just, err, cleaning up a bit.” He closed the door before Mycroft could argue with him.

The transport arrived momentarily. A gust of wind from its engines tore through John’s flat, scattering papers and knocking down his few photographs. Sholto and Izeborg boarded and John, closing the window, caught the motion of Sholto turning away as the transport lifted.

John darted back to open the door. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” Sherlock said. John’s eyes widened. Sherlock had replaced the thermal bandages with a white top that reached just below his ribs, leaving his midriff bare. Orange bracers striped down his chest and then tucked between his legs, where the clingy gold fabric of his trousers made it clear that Sherlock’s physique excelled in all areas.

“Um.” John felt his face heat. Damn Murray’s teasing and Sholto’s resurrection of uncomfortable memories. He felt a warm stirring that might be desire but he quelled it ruthlessly; he had a lot to think about and now was not the time.

Mycroft and Sherlock walked into the flat. For the second time in an hour John felt the burn of embarrassment over the state of his flat, which now looked as though a military transport had departed from just outside the window. He ignored Mycroft’s poorly hidden expression of distaste; Mycroft wouldn’t approve even if the place had been clean.

“Is everything okay?” John asked Sherlock. “Is it your injuries?” He mimed touching his skull and seeing blood on his fingers, but Sherlock shook his head and gestured for Mycroft to speak.

“We heard of your good fortune on the radio, and as much as it pains me to impose on you I must ask a boon.”

John raised his brows. “A boon.” John glanced at Sherlock, but he had turned away from the conversation to rifle through John’s papers. He held a photo in his hand. John didn’t need to see the tattered corners to know which one he’d found. Sherlock turned it towards him, pointed at John, young and smiling, his arms wrapped around a small blonde woman.

“My wife,” John said. “She died.”

Sherlock gazed at him solemnly, tapped his finger gently against Mary’s face. “Alollé,” he said.

Mycroft fiddled with the edge of his robe. “He says he’s sorry,” he translated.

John shrugged, the ache of her loss worn thin by time but no less familiar. Sherlock’s uncanny gaze seemed to have intuited the whole story already, and John had no interest in confiding in Mycroft. “Tell me about this boon.”

“Yes,” Mycroft said. “Put simply, we need your tickets to Fhloston Paradise.”

John’s eyes narrowed. “My tickets. You taking Sherlock on a vacation?”

John suspected that if they hadn’t just been talking about his dead wife Mycroft would have rolled his eyes.

“Not for pleasure,” Mycroft said crisply. “For a mission of vital importance.”

John felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. “A mission?”

“To save the world.”

“Which one?” John asked.

“All of them,” Mycroft replied solemnly.

The echo of Sholto’s words rang in John’s ears. He felt as though he’d been seized by a giant hand, rattled around, and set back down again. This was a hell of a coincidence. “I can’t give you the tickets,” he said. “I’ll be needing them.”

Mycroft frowned. John didn’t much care about that, but it pained him to see Sherlock frown also. “I can see you’re not a wealthy man. Perhaps you value money over the fate of the universe? I can arrange to have you paid a meaningful sum.”

John bristled. “Answer’s still no.”

Mycroft’s posture straightened even further, and damn, was John tired of looking up that snooty nose. “Doctor Watson, I have friends in high places. Believe me when I tell you that I can make your life miserable.”

“You already sort of are,” John said.

Mycroft reached into his robe and drew out John’s gun. “Unfortunately I don’t have the time to unravel your life strand by strand, so I must resort to more unpleasant methods.”

John almost laughed to see his sleek, lethal weapon paired with Mycroft’s prissy expression, as though the gun soiled his hands. Mycroft held the gun properly but John knew that it would be a moment’s work to disarm him.

Sherlock said something sharply to Mycroft, which, if tone were any guide, John suspected was Supreme Being for “What the hell, Mycroft?”

“Does Greg know you’re here?” John asked.

Mycroft blinked. “What?”

“See, he strikes me as the more rough-and-tumble of the two of you, does most of the dirty work, but I don’t think he’d approve of theft.” John took a step forward and Mycroft tightened his grip on the gun. “And if he did, he’d have the tickets already, rather than doing all this posturing.”

“I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but times are desperate, Doctor Watson, and as such, call for desperate actions.”

John bared his teeth in a feral smile. “Actually, it’s Major Watson.”

A robotic voice booming through the flat interrupted their standoff, announcing: “THIS IS A POLICE CONTROL ACTION. THIS IS NOT AN EXERCISE.”

Sherlock ran to the window. Mycroft backed against the wall, his hand loosening with surprise. John swiftly took the gun, ignoring Mycroft’s glare, and tucked it into its shielded compartment. He turned on the security monitor. The hallway swarmed with cops. The squad, armed with lights, crowd-control restraints, and shields, looked like it meant business.

“Such a charming neighborhood,” Mycroft sneered. “Does this happen often?”

“Often enough,” John said. He pushed the button on the wall that swapped the fridge with the shower. The fridge sank into the floor, gears grinding until the shower came level. “Sherlock, get in the shower.” Sherlock chattered at him but John gripped his wrist and pulled him urgently towards the security monitor to show him the cluster of cops in the hall. “We do not want another round with them,” he said. Sherlock nodded. John helped Sherlock into the shower. “Don’t touch anything.” He closed the door, then raised the fridge again.

He opened his bed, pushed Mycroft down on it. “What are you doing?” he squawked.

“Trying to save your arse,” John said, yanking Mycroft horizontal, “before it gets even more contaminated by life on the lower levels.” He pushed the button that retracted the bed and placed his hands on the yellow circles painted on the wall. Just then a transparent oval appeared on the door and a cop peered inside.

“SPREAD YOUR LEGS AND PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE YELLOW CIRCLES,” the cop instructed. John, already in position, rolled his eyes. Next the cops would ask for his name, run his ID, and then they’d go away. Two smaller see-through circles appeared and John tensed. Those circles meant the cops had lasers aimed at him from the other side of the door. Perhaps something had gone wrong with the randomizer on the cab. He was doubly glad to have Mycroft and Sherlock out of sight.

“Are you classified as human?” asked the cop.

John blinked. Not the usual question. “Was this morning,” he said. The cop grunted and held an ID shot up to the door, squinting. John hoped it wasn’t his. He casually turned his head a bit away from the door. The cop looked closer at the ID shot. “I’ll need to see your ID,” he said. John bit his lip.

“We’ve found him!” The shout came from down the hall.

The cop outside John’s door walked away, his armor clanging with every step. John heard a murmured conversation and then someone barked: “Mr. John Watson!” John’s head snapped up, but the voice came from a few doors down. “Put your hands in the yellow circles.” John looked where his own hands remained firmly in the circles.

“Fuck off!” That rasping voice belonged to his neighbor.

“Wrong answer,” John murmured. He heard the cops force the door open, the muffled thuds and grunts of a struggle, and then saw the cops dragging someone down the hall with a bag over his head. The panel on his door faded back to opacity.

“THE POLICE CONTROL IS NOW TERMINATED. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION. HAVE A NICE DAY.”

John went immediately to the shower, impatient for it to descend back into sight. Sherlock had his arms around himself, soaked to the skin and shivering. His eyes looked strange, smudged, John realized, with the remnants of eyeliner.

“Oh, I’m so sorry; I forgot about the autowash.” He helped Sherlock out of the shower. Sherlock’s skin radiated heat even while wet. John lost his train of thought as his hands skated over the shirt clinging to Sherlock’s torso. He pulled his hands away as though he’d burned himself. “There’s an autowash in that shower,” he repeated, fumbling in the cabinet for a towel. He wrapped it around Sherlock’s shoulders and rubbed it vigorously, striving to recover some distance, but Sherlock looked at him intently and said, “Autow-w-wash.”

John couldn’t help smiling up at him. Sherlock said it again, his eyes gleaming with amusement even as he shivered, and John nodded. He gentled the motion of the towel and wrapped it around Sherlock’s waist. His hands stilled. John’s mind slid into that strange silence that seemed to follow extended eye contact with Sherlock, feeling the pull of his presence, the unfamiliar impulse to stretch upwards and pull Sherlock’s mouth down to his own. His body seemed to have a will of his own in this, his hand sliding to cup the back of Sherlock’s neck before he realized that he stood on the brink of another misstep. Sherlock’s face stilled, his eyes going dark and predatory, and John felt what little resistance he had left fall away.

Neither one of them moved. The moment stretched on, Sherlock devouring John with his eyes and John knowing he should step away and completely unable to do so. Then Sherlock blinked, and John felt his awareness snap back into place. He heard a faint sound, a knocking followed by a distant shout, and then Sherlock said, “Mycroft.”

John pushed the button on the wall and the bed slid out. The bed had made itself, sealing up the clean sheets with a protective film, and Mycroft was being suffocated inside it. John tore the film open and Mycroft gasped. John checked his vitals and his breathing, and then helped him stand.

“Don’t touch me,” Mycroft snapped, and leaned against the wall, breathing quickly. John raised his hands pointedly.

“Autowash,” Sherlock chirped. Both men turned towards him. He stood unabashedly naked in the center of the flat, wringing the water from his clothes. John automatically looked for bruising and abrasions from the accident earlier but found none. John felt relieved that, whatever had nearly happened a moment ago, Sherlock’s naked body did not cause John any inappropriate urges. He eyed Sherlock’s firm musculature and wondered if he should offer him a snack; it probably took a fierce metabolism to fuel a body that fit. He’d seen few bodies so perfectly proportioned, every movement graceful and harmonious and, damnit, _now_ he was staring.

John turned his back, noticing that Mycroft had done the same. He heard a wet squelch of cloth that he hoped meant Sherlock had put his trousers on. “Tea?” he offered.

Mycroft pursed his lips, but nodded, and John went to put on a pot of water. He felt certain that his tea would horrify Mycroft and was quite looking forward to it. The stove refused to ignite. John whacked it with his hand to no avail. Perhaps it had finally broken beyond repair and he could request a new one.

John stood, fiddling with the knobs, when he sensed a movement behind him. He turned too late to avoid a blunt blow to the back of the head, and he fell, Sherlock’s angry gibberish the last thing he heard before everything went black.

When he came to, the back of his skull felt tender but not bloody. It ached but he’d had worse. He verified that his tickets to Fhloston Paradise had indeed left the flat, undoubtedly in Mycroft’s pocket. He fetched an ice pack and sat down on the bed, pressing it carefully to his head. He reached for the phone, dialed a number he’d never forgotten, and said only, “All right, Colonel. I’ll take the mission.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All gratitude to patternofdefiance, as usual!

The airport smelled terrible. Trash stood in teetering piles, untouched by sanitation workers until management answered their demands. John made his way down the narrow path to the terminal, eyeing the massing police force warily. He knew an imminent showdown when he saw one, and he definitely did not want to get mistaken for a striker, or a scab. He walked faster.

He found the gate marked “Fhloston Non-Stop, Last Call” flashing in large letters. Two familiar figures stood talking to the attendant. John’s eyes narrowed. He stepped up behind Lestrade and clapped him on the shoulder, hard. He hoped it bruised.

“Greg!” John exclaimed cheerfully. “Hey, thanks so much for getting me checked in.”

Greg’s shoulders stiffened and he looked a bit ill. Sherlock, however, grinned at John manically. Greg eyed Sherlock’s grin and then looked over to John, who had grinned back, and his brows lifted slightly. John turned towards the attendant, put some charm into it. “I was so worried about missing my flight I sent Greg ahead to get my boarding pass.” John turned towards Greg. “Did you take care of my luggage, too?”

Greg looked thoughtful. “I checked in some luggage, yeah.”

John smiled at him, making sure to show lots of teeth. “Well, Sherlock and I can handle it from here,” he said. “You can go.” Greg stood at the kiosk for a few seconds and then shuffled over to the side. He did not leave.

The attendant looked at John suspiciously. “I’ll need your ID,” she said. John handed it over, keeping his eyes focused on the intense blue of her eye makeup instead of the cutouts on the front of her uniform. She took longer than he liked with the computer and he worried that the business with the cab might have made it the system, into but then she handed him his ID and boarding pass.

“And this is?”

Sherlock held up his ID imperiously. “Sherlock Watson Multipass,” he declared. John nodded, waited for Sherlock to give it to the attendant. Instead, Sherlock brandished it in the air, informing all and sundry that it was a Multipass.

“Yes,” John said. He plucked it from Sherlock’s fingers and handed it over.

“Your husband?” The attendant looked at John skeptically. He couldn’t blame her; who’d expect someone like him to be married to an amazing being like Sherlock? But no-one would ever mistake them for brothers.

“Newlyweds,” John answered, mindful of the cover Sholto had created for him. “On our honeymoon. Love at first sight, you know. Bump into each other, sparks happen—“

“Mul-tee-pass,” Sherlock enunciated with some heat, tugging at John’s sleeve.

“She knows it’s a Multipass,” John said, and retrieved it from the attendant. Sherlock seemed happier when he had it in his possession again, his smile distracting enough that John found himself babbling a bit.

“Any– uh, anyway… we’re in love,” John said, “and when I won the contest we decided to get married. Bit of a whirlwind, really.” He shut up. He’d never felt so off-kilter at the beginning of a mission. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Greg smirking.

The attendant’s stern look had softened; she looked charmed. She gestured toward the boarding hallway and wished them a happy honeymoon. John took Sherlock’s arm and headed for the door. Greg let them get out of the attendant’s direct line of sight before stepping in to block their way.

“I’d like a word, if you don’t mind,” Greg said.

“Sorry, no time,” John said. “Sherlock and I have to board.”

“There’s time,” Greg insisted. He folded his arms over his chest.

John didn’t want to hurt Greg, nor to attract the attention of airport security, so he released Sherlock and waited for Greg to speak.

“You need to read up on the Fifth Element legend when you’re in flight, because it’s not a legend and you’re now right in the middle of it. The Encyclopedia leaves a lot out but it’ll do. Sherlock can fill you in on the rest. Make sure he tells you about the Companion.” Greg gave Sherlock a hard look, his lips twisting into a sour expression. “I’ve only been training for this my whole life but hey, looks like the Companion turns up on his own.”

“The what?” John asked.

“Anyway, Sherlock has to meet someone on Fhloston Paradise and get to a temple in Egypt. You have to make sure he succeeds.”

John shook his head. “I’ve got my own agenda,” he said. “Mycroft’s trick with the tickets means that Sherlock is stuck with me.”

Greg winced. “Yeah, that’s not how I would have played it,” he admitted. “But Sherlock’s mission is more important than whatever you’ve got going on. It’s literally the most important thing in the universe right now.”

“So is mine,” John said. “For all I know, they’re the same.”

Greg gave him a considering look. “The part of me that would have been a cop is so dubious about this,” he said. “But I’m a priest, and we tend to take things on faith. Nothing about this is turning how I expected.” He glanced over at Sherlock, who nodded. “All right,” he said. “Good luck to you, John. May all the Elements be with you.” And then he laughed.

John raised his eyebrows.

“Priest humor,” Greg said. “I’ve offered that benediction a thousand times, and this time it’s unquestionably true.” He stuck out his hand. “Wish me luck, too; I really don’t want to go to Egypt.”

John shook Greg’s hand. The final boarding call crackled over the tannoy and John turned to Sherlock.

“Ready?”

Sherlock nodded, and they walked through the door together. John checked in with the next attendant, ready to get to his berth and sort out the details of Sherlock’s mysterious mission. Instead, the attendant gave him a wide-eyed look, stepped out from behind the podium, and dragged him a few steps down the hall before John quite figured out what was happening.

“Oh, Mr. Watson, we really need you now. Ruby Rhod is broadcasting live and he needs you for an interview.” Her heels clicked so loudly against the metal plating of the floor that John almost couldn’t make out her words. He twisted his arm out of her grasp.

“I don’t want to leave my husband alone,” John said. “We’re on our honeymoon.” John looked back towards Sherlock. Another blue-clad attendant gestured Sherlock down the boarding ramp towards First Class.

“It’s part of the contest,” John’s attendant insisted. “It’ll only take a minute, I promise.”

Sherlock looked surprised but not alarmed, and he gave John a little wave, so John decided to get through the contest’s requirements as quickly as possible. He allowed the attendant to bustle him through a the door into a wide corridor, past a queue of what could only be fans. John hoped the interview wouldn’t be too much of an ordeal.

“Ruby Rhod is the hottest radio star right now,” the attendant gushed. “He is _so green_.”

“Look,” John said, “I’m on vacation. I don’t want to be bothered. I want to stay anonymous.”

She smiled at him. “Forget anonymous! You’re going to be so famous. You’ll be on his show every day from five until seven. You are so lucky!”

John did not like the sound of that. Old tricks might be the best, but this contest seemed to have more strings attached than he’d realized. He’d seen the ridiculous Gemini Croquette commercials; it sounded like there’d be a public relations circus in the same vein.

A fanfare of electronic trumpets echoed down the hall and a man slid into view. He wore a skintight leopard print jumpsuit cut low in the front to show a wide expanse of brown skin, with an extravagant collar that rose behind his neck to frame his face. The tight curls of his hair had been shaped into a strange cylindrical headpiece and dyed white. He skidded to a stop in front of John, threw his arms wide, and sing-songed John’s name into his headset microphone.

“Here he is! The winner of the Gemini Croquette Contest.” Rhod stalked towards John, wielding a silver staff like a weapon. “This boy is fueled like fire, so start melting, ladies, because he is hotter than hot. He’s hot, hot, hot!” Rhod delivered the last line with a long, completely overt look up and down John’s body as he whooshed past. Rhod’s entourage surrounded John and swept him down the hall in the DJ’s wake.

“The right size, the right hair, the right build, the right on,” Rhod continued. “Right on!” He grabbed a paintbrush held for him by yet another assistant and strutted past the line of fans, splattering red paint on their photos instead of an autograph. The fans looked thrilled, but John’s eyes narrowed.

“And he’s got something to say,” Rhod chanted, “to those fifty billion pairs of ears out there. Pop it, J-man!” He stuck the mic in John’s face, oblivious to the fans behind him forced to duck out of the way of its swing.

John stared at the mic. “Hi,” he said at last.

Rhod looked at him expectantly. John kept his mouth shut. The pause stretched, but then Rhod threw himself into a flamboyant spin and declared: “Unbelievable!”

John wondered if he was Rhod’s most reluctant guest. Most people probably fell all over themselves at the opportunity to be on the radio, but John wouldn’t have enjoyed it even if he weren’t supposed to be keeping a low profile. The entourage continued down the hall, herding John along with them.

“Quiver, ladies,” Rhod continued. “He’s going to set the world on fire. Right here from five to seven, you’ll know everything there is to know about the J-man.” He narrowed his eyes, focused on a svelte flight attendant as though he were a hunting bird and she his prey. John had never seen a human pounce before, but Rhod managed it, pushing himself right into the woman’s space.

“You’ll know everything there is to know about the J-man,” Rhod said to her, his voice echoing with reverb. He leaned in to whisper into her ear. “His dreams. His desires. His most intimate of intimates.” Charisma poured from him like syrup, sticky and sweet and leaving one in need of a wash.

Rhod turned back toward John without a backward glance, as though the woman he’d just been seducing had ceased to exist. “And from what I’m looking at, intimate is his middle name. So tell me, my man. You nervous in the service?” Rhod’s entourage stared at John as though his answer might hold the key to the universe.

John knew he’d fallen into his most intimidating military posture. “Not really,” he said, his tone arctic. Lesser men had quailed before that voice, but Rhod just seemed annoyed, grimacing and rolling his eyes. He looped his arm around John’s and half-danced, half-walked them down the hallway, rhymes and rhythms flowing.

“Freeze those knees,” Rhod babbled on, “because John’s in the place and he’s on the case. Yesterday’s frog will be tomorrow’s prince of Fhloston Paradise!” A catering service worker appeared at Rhod’s elbow with a tray of champagne glasses. Rhod grabbed one, toasted the cluster of pilots at the end of the hall, and then flung it aside without drinking any. John ground his teeth as champagne splattered over his shirt.

An aide handed Rhod a cue card and he rattled off the lines: “The hotel of a thousand and one follies, dollies and lickin’ lollies. A magic fountain filled with non-stop wine, women, and…hootchie kootchie coo!” Rhod dropped the card and shimmied his hips into some kind of lewd pelvic thrusting. “All night long!”

John watched in horrified amazement as Rhod zeroed in on another attendant, voicing a long, lascivious “ooooh!” He pranced over to her like a show horse and then began speaking so close to her mouth that John swore he saw their lips brush together.

“Start licking stamps, girls, because he’ll have you writing home to Mama. Here from five to seven I’ll be your voice, your tongue—“ he murmured. He waggled his tongue at the attendant in a gesture John considered obscene, but she gasped in obvious arousal. “—on the trail of the sexiest man of the year: J-man, your man, my man.” Ruby turned away from the attendant, oblivious to her swooning behind him, and said, “End transmission.”

John had no patience for the disorganized dance of sycophancy and nonsense that followed as Rhod’s assistants offered cigarettes, champagne, and slavish praise for the broadcast. The word “green” seemed the slang du jour, and John quickly lost the ability to hear the word without cringing. Rhod seemed to be paying only half-attention to his fanboys, darting glances at John instead. He flapped his hands at them dismissively, accompanied by a buzzing sound, of all things, and they scattered immediately. Rhod strutted over to John, frustration writ in every line of his body.

“John, sweetheart, what was that? It was bad. It had nothing. No fire. No energy! I have a show to run here. It must pop, pop, pop! So tomorrow, please act like you have more than a two-word vocabulary.”

“Can I talk to you for a moment?” John asked. When Rhod nodded John edged him around a corner for a bit of privacy. Then John straightened his spine, and said in a low, no-nonsense voice: “I didn’t come here to play radio star. Tomorrow you will bloody well leave me alone or you will not like the consequences.” John had killed in close quarters, felt the blood of an enemy pouring over his hands, and he let that knowledge seep into his face.

Rhod did not look intimidated. Instead, his eyes went a little crazy. He radiated a palpable menace that seemed completely out of proportion for the situation. John found himself resisting the urge to step back. And then Rhod laughed and shook John’s hand as though they were the closest of friends.

“Of course, darling! You’re just a little nervous. It’s totally green! We’ll have you sorted out in no time.”

Rhod left in a swish of leopard print, leaving John wondering if he’d imagined it.

* * *

John had traveled through space in the hard aluminum seats of a military transport, the cramped cockpit of a combat shuttle, and the standing-room-only cabins of consumer flights. He’d never flown First Class before and now might not ever feel satisfied with anything else. He walked down a corridor in the rear of the spaceplane, each side lined with tiny, private sleeping berths, searching for the one that matched his ticket. When he located it he found Sherlock already tucked inside. John swung his body in, stretching his legs towards the back. The compartment seemed comfortably cocoon-like, cozy but not cramped. The cushions beneath him felt like velvet. 

A voice came over the intercom. “To make your travel short, attendants are switching on the sleep regulator to regulate your sleep during flight.”

John lay on his side, towards Sherlock, his head propped on his arm. Sherlock lay on his stomach, leaning on his elbows. John couldn’t help noticing the sinuous curve of Sherlock’s lower back and arse. This close, he could smell Sherlock, fragrant and earthy.

“Hi,” Sherlock said.

John smiled at him. “Hey, you learned English.”

“Some,” Sherlock said. “Need more time.” He gestured to the screen on the wall of the berth which displayed a list of words scrolling almost too rapidly for John to follow. He wasn’t even sure that all of them were in English.

“Wow,” John said. He shook his head. “That’s amazing.”

Sherlock smiled at him. John smiled back, and lost a moment watching the corners of Sherlock’s eyes crinkle. His fascination for Sherlock seemed to be getting worse. He shook his head, got it back into the mission.

“Sherlock, listen. Those tickets you, um, borrowed. They don’t belong to me. I mean, they do, but I’m not on vacation. I’m working for some very serious people. If I hadn’t let you come with me you’d be in a lot of trouble for having that ticket.”

Sherlock shrugged. John wondered if he understood. Sherlock seemed to understand everything, English or no English, but John didn’t want to take chances. Sholto’s files left no uncertainty about the dangers of this mission: someone wanted the stones enough to destroy a Mondoshawan ship — John didn’t know how Earth had avoided a war with the reclusive and secretive aliens after that — so who knows what else they might do? Sherlock was part of his cover now, and John needed him to understand, to stay out of the line of fire.

Sherlock had already returned his attention to the scrolling words on the wall, his eyes steady as the letters flickered past.

“I would love to be on vacation with you,” John began, and then paused. He _would_ love that, actually. Wished that the two of them could arrive at Fhloston and get to know each other. He knew a vacation with Sherlock could never bore him, and he could all too easily imagine what Sherlock’s body would look like cutting through crystal blue waters. “But we’re not,” he said at last.

“No,” Sherlock said. “Mission.”

“Yeah,” John said. “Why don’t you tell me about yours?”

Sherlock paused the screen, turned his alien eyes on John. “Ship destroyed, body destroyed. Made again in machine. It hurt.” 

Sherlock’s shoulders hunched a moment. John understood. He’d been brought back from the edge of death a few times, and it did feel like being destroyed and remade. Sherlock had clearly been in hospital somewhere, but who hurt him? And why?

Sherlock tapped his fist against the floor of the sleeper and spread his fingers wide. “Escape. Find you, dinoïné.”

“Dio—“ John began.

Sherlock looked frustrated. “Dinoïné. Universe bring right things, right time together.”

“Fate?” John asked.

Sherlock shook his head. “Other word.”

“Destiny?”

“Destiny,” Sherlock nodded. “Stones.” Sherlock made a complex, undulating gesture with his hands. “Temple,” he continued, and then he tipped his head back to look at the ceiling of the berth. “Light.”

John felt a chill skitter down his spine. How many sets of stones on Fhloston Paradise could there be? If Sherlock also wanted the stones, John’s mission had just gotten a lot more complicated. He’d have to get the stones before Sherlock did, maybe even take Sherlock out of the equation somehow. He felt ill at the thought, but a small part of him quietly began running scenarios in his head. Surely he could find a way to just give Sherlock the slip.

Sherlock didn’t seem to notice John’s distraction. “Me, Fifth Element. You, Companion.”

“What does that mean?” John said. “Am I supposed to protect you or something?” The irony of the situation soured in John’s guts.

“No. Me, Supreme Being. I protect you.” Sherlock looked at John, as serious as John had ever seen him. “Companion steadies. Focuses.”

Then Sherlock looked away, looked back up John through his lashes. He still had eyeliner smudged around his eyes, accentuating their strange, shifting color. Sherlock’s lips shaped a small, devilish smile. “And sometimes pleasure.”

John’s eyes widened. “P-pleasure?” He swallowed. For one moment he thought about it, his mind supplying hazy flashes of Sherlock’s mouth on his body, or those long fingers in the secret places John sometimes stroked while he lay in his lonely bed. And then he thought of the stones and his desire wilted away.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” John said.

Sherlock looked undeterred. “New body,” he said, eyes twinkling. “First time.”

John couldn’t couldn’t believe someone so beautiful had no sexual experience. “So you haven’t. Um.” He bit his lip, belatedly realizing that, since he was definitely not considering having sex with Sherlock, he’d asked a question both rude and irrelevant.

“ _This_ body, no.” Sherlock said, and from his tone of voice John suspected Sherlock would have added “obviously” if he’d known the word. “This body has only one day old.”

John tilted his head. Sherlock had healed from serious injuries; did he mean that his body felt brand new? Perhaps Sherlock saw the confusion on John’s face, because he rolled to his back, grasped John’s wrist and placed John’s hand on Sherlock’s stomach. His hand looked dark against that pale flesh, Sherlock’s navel peeking from between John’s fingers.

John froze.

“New skin,” Sherlock said. “Touch.”

John stroked tentatively across the flat plane of Sherlock’s belly, feeling the ridges of well-defined muscles beneath soft, perfect skin–-skin that felt as untouched by time as Sherlock claimed. John couldn’t deny the evidence under his fingers even though he didn’t understand it; the only technology John knew that could grow a whole new body came at such financial expense that only the ultra-rich used it. Afterwards, the new body had no memories of its life before, and Sherlock said that he did. John took his hand back. He wondered if he looked as flummoxed as he felt.

“Had many bodies,” Sherlock said. “Body usually shaped like this one, but sometimes woman body.” He returned to lying on his stomach. “Always tall, strong, clever.”

John hadn’t given much credence to the notion of Sherlock as a Supreme Being, regardless of what the priests said, because priests always had some kind of magical story about the entities of their faith. But he didn’t have any good explanation for what Sherlock claimed, either. John felt as though he held a handful of puzzle pieces that refused to go together. Or perhaps they did fit and he just couldn’t believe the picture that they made.

“You’re telling me that your body is literally one day old. But you have memories from previous…lives?”

Sherlock looked relieved. “Yes. Many cycles of prophecy.”

John rubbed between his eyes. “I don’t understand,” he said.

Sherlock thumped his hand against his chest. “Supreme Being,” he said, as though that made it clear.

John sighed. “Maybe we should have this conversation after you learn more words,” he said. Or maybe he’d look up the Fifth Element legend in the Encyclopedia Galactica like Greg suggested. That reminded him of Greg’s cryptic comment in the airport.

“And the Companion?” John asked. “Many, er, cycles?” John didn’t know what sort of thing the Companion was, but he doubted if could be him. Not the least of which is because he’d never once had a memory of a past life.

Sherlock shook his head. “Companion different every time. Sometimes doctor, teacher, scientist. Soldier. Always brave, strong, kind. Big heart. Like you.”

John blinked. “I’m flattered, but I’m not—” He shrugged uncomfortably. “You don’t know enough about me if you believe that’s true. I was a good soldier once but now I’m just tired. It’s not bravery if you have nothing else to do.”

Sherlock’s mouth tilted up at the corners. He again grasped John’s wrist, took John’s hand between his own. John tried not to notice how delicate his looked in comparison. Sherlock traced a tingling path across John’s palm, his fingertips catching on the callouses.

“Hands, gentle, skilled,” Sherlock said. He carefully pressed a kiss to each of John’s fingers. His tongue darted out to taste, the gesture both curious and sensual, and John shivered. Sherlock scooted closer, angling his body toward John’s. He reached over to tap John’s thigh, two fingers resting where John had preferred to wear a holster during his military tenure. “Gun. Steady. Protect.”

Then he moved his hand in a slow, deliberate slide up John’s thigh and John’s mouth went dry, but Sherlock smoothed over John’s hip and then up his side until he gripped John’s left shoulder, which still ached sometimes even after enduring the miracles of modern medicine. Sherlock squeezed it gently. “Wounds. You know pain.”

Sherlock’s hand drifted to cradle John’s face, his palm warm against John’s cheek. Sherlock’s thumb stroked gently near the corner of John’s eye. “Eyes soft, sad.”

The berth seemed full to the brim with Sherlock’s presence. Their knees brushed together as Sherlock leaned forward, their pelvises tantalizingly close to alignment. John couldn’t make himself move away; he let Sherlock close the distance between them until their mouths nearly touched.

“I know you,” Sherlock whispered against John’s lips. “Always know you.” 

John held his breath, waiting for that final moment of contact, when someone knocked on the window of their berth.

“All right, you lovebirds,” chirped an attendant. She smiled at them indulgently. “Time to go to sleep.”

“No,” John said, “Wait—“

“Sweet dreams, Mr. Watson.” She reached overhead to press the button to the regulator. There was a click, and then John was asleep.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to patternofdefiance!

John woke alone. He’d never had the luxury of sleep regulation before; he felt refreshed, and even had a pleasant taste in his mouth, but his concern at Sherlock’s absence overshadowed everything else. The place beside him felt cool to the touch, so Sherlock had been gone for a while. According to his mission briefing the Diva wouldn’t have arrived on the luxury liner yet; Sherlock could be positioning himself to intercept the stones. John climbed out of the berth.

“Ladies, gentlemen, and variations thereupon: welcome to paradise!” The smooth voice on the PA voice went on to announce the local time and temperature, but John paid it little mind, concentrating instead on making his way through the glut of passengers in the hall.

Disembarkation was a madhouse. The lobby of the cruise ship echoed with noise, conversations and questions drowned out by the music pouring from a quartet of musicians. John noted the luxurious decorations and the breathtaking architecture — hard to miss windows soaring three stories high and showing a perfect blue sky — but they served as more of a distraction while he searched the crowd for Sherlock’s distinctive ginger hair.

A pair of fit and gorgeous people intercepted John. Both wore sarongs and short, sheer tops. Each draped a lei over his neck and kissed his cheek. The blossoms had a light, sweet scent; John thought they might be real flowers. He couldn’t think of the last time he’d smelled anything but synthetics.

He pushed through the crowd, his displeasure rising at every accidental brush and jostle, and then he heard someone call his name. A slim blonde woman seized his arm and guided him to his quarters. She pointed out features of the ship as they passed: pools, rooftop dining, and a recitation of the local items of interest. John listened with half an ear, his eyes evaluating escape routes and danger zones, matching the terrain with the maps he’d studied.

At last they reached his quarters. John had hoped that Sherlock would be in the room already, but John saw no sign of him. The room looked like a television set, posh and unreal: deep blue walls with ornate gold trim; plush furniture; thick rugs made from the skin of exotic creatures. The bed looked large enough to hold four people. He brushed his hand over the rich, soft fabric of an armchair and refused to let the luxury overwhelm him.

“Has the Diva arrived yet?” John asked. His information told him that her shuttle would dock in the next hour. Assuming her timetable hadn’t changed, John ought to be able to intercept her before the show.

The hostess shook her head. “She’ll be here soon,” she answered. “Her performance will be at 5pm, when the ship rises to give guests a better view of Fhloston. It’s going to be incredible.”

“I’d like to see it,” John told her. “Are there tickets available?”

“You have a seat reserved in the front row,” she said with a smile. “Next to Ruby Rhod!” She chanted the syllables of Rhod’s name in a fair impression of the DJ’s lilting delivery, and giggled, completely unexpected after the smooth, practiced charm of her previous narration. “He’s so talented, don’t you think? I love him. He’s so sexy.”

John couldn’t control his incredulous expression but she’d crossed the room to show him the decadent bathroom and didn’t see it. John wrestled his face back to neutral. He paid attention to the instructions; he could count on one hand the number of baths he’d had in his life, and hoped he’d have time to take advantage of the sunken tub, the size of a small pool, that took up the center of the bathroom.

“Ruby has your tickets. He’ll be here in two hours if you’d like to freshen up.”

“Where can I get something to wear?” John asked. Dress for the opera would be black tie, not something John had ever owned. The hostess clicked a switch on the wall and a rack of suits slid out of the closet. She gave him another polished smile, and then wished him good evening.

“Thanks,” John said. After the hostess left he took another look around the room. He poked through some of the drawers, finding toiletries, a data cube full of the current best-selling novels, and the keys to the entertainment programming. The drawers next to the bed held sexual items of all kinds, some of which John could not identify. He raised his brows. Every luxury, indeed.

He’d just resolved to go and look for Sherlock when he heard the chime of a visitor at the door. He activated the security monitor and saw a small woman in black, her fine features accentuated by her shaved head and dark eye makeup.

“Ms Plavalaguna is glad that you are here,” she said. “She’ll give you what you’ve come to get after the concert.”

John stood and crossed to the door, but by the time he opened it she’d gone. He saw her enter the cabin down the hall, navigating through a whirlwind of porters and hotel staff. The Diva had obviously arrived. John, relieved to have made contact, went straight into the bathroom of his quarters. Now that he could stop worrying about Sherlock—or anyone else—getting to the stones first he intended to spend at least an hour in that glorious bathtub.

Water gushed from eight ornate taps at the perfect temperature. John wished he could add some of the various potions and salts displayed around the tub but he didn’t dare scent himself: even though the mission seemed to be proceeding without incident, one never knew when things would go awry. John stripped off his clothes and got into the water. He sighed with pleasure as he immersed himself to his neck. He lounged shamelessly, every bit of soreness from the last few days slowly easing in the heat.

After a while he had the computer read him the Encyclopedia Galactica entry about the Fifth Element legend. It informed him of the discovery of hieroglyphics in an ancient Egyptian temple but most of the entry covered the academic infighting about the translations rather than the ramifications of the text. He heard no mention of an organized religion, which made him wonder what exactly Mycroft presided over.

He replayed the translation: “When the three planets are in eclipse, the black hole, like a door, is open. Evil comes, sowing terror and chaos. The people will gather the elements around a fifth, to protect all.”

“There’s more to it than that, but I suppose that’s sufficient,” came Sherlock’s voice, and John nearly swallowed some bathwater. Sherlock strode into view and looked at John appraisingly. John wished he’d added some bubbles after all.

“Damnit, Sherlock, I’m in the bath.” John scowled at him, and then realized that Sherlock’s diction had changed completely. “I guess you finished learning English?”

Sherlock nodded. “All the Earth languages, actually. Some of them haven’t changed that much.” Sherlock began stripping off his clothes.

“What are you doing?” John asked.

Sherlock gave him a look that clearly informed John that he’d asked a foolish question, and stepped into the tub. John shook his head. Sherlock might have learned a hundred languages in a few hours but he didn’t seem to have picked up any of the social niceties. Sherlock sprawled himself into the water, leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He made a small, low sound of pleasure that made John’s skin feel tight.

Without moving, or even looking at John, Sherlock said, “You have questions. Only a few of them are useful. Ask.”

“What is your mission?” John said. “Now that you can explain it.”

Sherlock stretched his neck muscles in the water. “The same as yours. Your government sent you to fetch the stones, but they only knew the stones were important because Mycroft told them so. They took his information—knowledge passed down from priest to priest for centuries, I might add—and made a unilateral decision with it. I’d say they behaved heavy-handedly, even foolishly,” Sherlock cracked his eyes open, tilted his head to look at John, “except that they sent you, and you are exactly what I need.”

Sherlock delivered this information without inflection or warmth, as though John were merely the right tool for the job, and John bristled. He’d had about enough of people thinking of him only in terms of his usefulness. He rather wanted to call Sherlock out on it, but instead he focused on the amount of information Sherlock seemed to have about his mission. There must have been a security leak.

“How do you know all that?” John asked.

“Child’s play, John.” Sherlock sat up, lay his arms along the edges of the tub. “I knew you were a soldier from the start, and it became clear quite quickly that you were also a doctor. An intriguing combination. Once I saw the mission briefing in your flat I knew that you hadn’t won the tickets coincidentally. Before you ask, I didn’t know that Mycroft would hit you. But when you arrived at the ticket kiosk I knew that things had fallen into place.”

Sherlock’s leaned forward. “Evil is coming. I am the only thing that can stop it, and to do so the stones and I must get to the temple as soon as possible.”

John felt Sherlock’s conviction like sunlight. He wanted to bask in it. He took a slow breath and allowed himself to relax into the sensation of rightness: the path seemed clear and he felt secure in his place in the world for the first time in years. Even better, the adventure included someone as amazing as Sherlock, which made him wonder how he got so lucky. John realized that his thoughts must be clear on his face when Sherlock’s gaze went deep and dark.

John swayed forward without thinking, licking his lips, mesmerized by the interplay of light and shadow in Sherlock’s eyes. Sherlock slowly moved towards John, his skin shining pale in the water. Droplets outlined the firm muscles of his chest. The sheer beauty of him made John feel almost drugged with it, and then Sherlock crowded John against the back of the tub. Sherlock cupped the back of John’s head, his large, warm hand cradling John’s skull. John bit his lip. He didn’t mean to be doing this; he didn’t even know Sherlock; he had a mission. None of that mattered: he felt as though he might die if Sherlock didn’t kiss him.

At last, their lips touched. The tentative, gentle brush of flesh only underscored John’s desperation. Desire uncoiled beneath his skin, rose from the depths with a ferocity that set him trembling. He made a pleading sound against Sherlock’s mouth and pressed into the kiss. Sherlock wound a long arm around John’s waist, pulled him so close that John could feel Sherlock’s heart thudding against his own, and licked his tongue into John’s mouth. John shivered at the sensation, unable to silence the whimper it elicited. Sherlock echoed the sound and the kiss exploded into a frenzy of teeth and tongues, hot and wet and completely out of control as John poured his confusion, his years of skin-hunger and his inexplicable craving for Sherlock into the kiss.

Sherlock pushed closer, as though he wanted to crawl inside John’s skin, and John felt Sherlock’s erection graze against his own. It felt so good that he found himself wrapping his legs around Sherlock’s waist. Sherlock thrust against him and John groaned aloud, helped Sherlock grind their bodies together. John felt shockingly close to orgasm, his body rocketing towards climax so quickly that it almost hurt.

Sherlock broke the kiss to press his open mouth where John’s neck met his shoulder, biting down hard. It registered as pain and John suddenly couldn’t get enough air, panting in short, sharp gasps for breath. Everything felt wrong. His pulse raced, making him dizzy and disoriented. He felt trapped against the back of the tub. It sent him him to another place and time, the moisture in the bathroom becoming the oppressive humidity of the jungle on Tevi Vorta, the weight against him like the creature that had savaged half of his squad. John twisted in Sherlock’s arms, clumsy with panic. Sherlock tightened his grip and John did the only thing he could think of to escape: he slid under the water, kicked himself free, and swam to the other side of the tub.

Sherlock made as if to follow him, but John flung up his hand.

“Stop,” John said, his voice rough. “Give me a minute.”

“Let me help,” Sherlock said.

John, feeling sick and shaky, shook his head. Sherlock ignored him to reach over and grasp his wrist. Sherlock’s fingers, cool against John’s overheated skin, grounded him somehow, forcing John to focus on the place where their skin met, as though Sherlock’s grip had become the only thing that mattered. It took only a few moments for his body to calm. 

John had been triggered enough times to know that adrenaline didn’t just wash away like that. “How did you do that?” he asked. 

Sherlock looked him over clinically, as though reassuring himself of John’s recovery, and then released John’s wrist. He said, “I’m sorry. I forgot that humans can be so easily overwhelmed.”

John blinked. That wasn’t an answer, but, “You’re not human?” While plenty of the other races of the galaxy looked humanoid, he didn’t know of any that could pass for human the way Sherlock did.

“Not really,” Sherlock said. “And neither were my last Companions; I’m out of practice. I just wanted to make you feel good, and—“ He looked away from John, his shoulders tense, a pained expression on his face. 

John didn’t especially want to talk about it, but he wanted even less for Sherlock to take the blame for John’s fucked-up psyche. “There’s no need to apologize for being amazing in bed,” John said. “It felt good. Beyond good. I suspect that would have been the best orgasm of my life, actually,” he said wryly. Sherlock gave him a small smile. “I just got too worked up, I guess.“ 

He shrugged, willing to write it off as just part of his unexpected chemistry with Sherlock, but as the haze of hormones began to clear it didn’t make sense. He’d never had this kind of reaction to sex, and despite the occasional nightmare or combat flashback in the cab, he hadn’t been this close to a panic attack in months. So what just happened?

Sherlock must have seen some of this on his face, because he sighed. “There is a connection between the Fifth Element and the Companion. The pair may experience psychic phenomenon in accordance with the genetic tendencies of the Companion’s race.” He sounded though he were reading from a textbook.

“I think you need to start from the beginning,” John said. “I still don’t know what the Companion is, or why you think I am it, or what that has to do with me nearly passing out.”

“Tedious,” Sherlock said. “Just because I know all the lore doesn’t mean I want to recite it. Suffice it to say, I drew on our connection to give you pleasure, and I misjudged. I’ll remember next time. You’ll just have to trust me.” He said it dismissively, as though he’d earned the right to John’s trust. As though John had ever once trusted anyone easily.

John’s temper flared. “Why should I trust you? You’ve just said that you psychically manipulated me!“ John stopped speaking, the implications of Sherlock’s words crashing through his mind.

“I haven’t been able to think clearly around you since we met,” John said slowly. “I thought it was just charisma or something, but I’ve never.” He swallowed, thinking of how he’d been immediately drawn to Sherlock, enough that he’d completely changed the trajectory of his life. He thought of the shameful kiss in Mycfroft’s flat and how many times he’d wanted to do it again. He thought of the way his brain shut down every time those grey-green eyes met his in a certain way. John felt a cold rage building inside him.

“You will bloody well explain this to me, or I am done with you.” John bit out the words, his hands clenching the side of the tub.

Sherlock caught his breath. He looked as though John had struck him, his eyes wide and startled. “I can’t,” he said.

John pulled himself out of the water, wrapped a towel around his hips. Sherlock threw himself forward, grabbed the towel to hold John in place. “Wait.”

John waited, hoping that Sherlock could make this right somehow.

“Truly, I can’t. I try not to theorize before I have data. I know what it feels like, but I’ve never had the time to do proper experiments. The priests have written thousands of words about the Fifth Element and the Companion; they don’t understand it either.”

“But you’ve been manipulating me,” John said. He pulled his towel out of Sherlock’s grip.

“Only a little,” Sherlock said, “And not on purpose.” He ran his hands through his hair. Water sprinkled over John’s skin. “It’s how I was made. I’m a fast learner; I see everything, but I don’t ever have time to learn it all. So people are supposed to want to help me.”

John thought about when Sherlock crashed into the cab. He’d spotted how Sherlock played up his injury and his helplessness to convince John to help him, but it had felt so good to be part of something again that he hadn’t cared. Sherlock had drawn him from those first moments. It burned in his gut to hear that it was some kind of genetic defense mechanism.

“So, what, people see you and can’t stop thinking about you? They turn their whole lives upside down to go on crazy escapades with you? They make out with you in bathtubs, because of what, some kind of pheromones? I’ve never felt this way about anyone, Sherlock, and you’re telling me it’s not real.” John felt his cheeks heat as he heard the words fall out of his mouth. Suddenly the dampness from the bath made his skin feel clammy.

Sherlock’s gaze felt piercing. “No,” he said. “The advantages of my creation make people see me in the best light, and yes, sometimes it means they feel attracted to me, but not the rest. I draw in the Companion by that same phenomenon, at first, but it doesn’t take long for our connection to make you immune. You are the one being who can see me as I am.”

John felt some of the tension in his chest ease. He wasn’t sure he believed any of it, but he preferred the idea that he made his own choices. Sherlock lifted himself out of the tub and came to stand before John, gloriously naked, and John felt the pull of him. John realized that if Sherlock was right, John’s feelings for Sherlock _weren’t_ in fact caused by any magical whatsit, and he didn’t know what to make of that.

Sherlock spoke again. “I have been feral; I have been mad. The Companion keeps me right. You, John Watson, you will keep me right.”

John felt his pelvis grow heavy with desire as Sherlock’s eyes held his own. He ignored it. “What does that mean for me?”

Sherlock smiled down at him, his voice a low murmur. “I know you,” he said. “I always know you.”

John took a shaky breath. He wanted nothing more than to close the gap between their bodies, and he could see that Sherlock felt the same. But he was a soldier, and a doctor: he dealt with the manifest world. He didn’t know how to deal with a life where mysterious forces brought him friendship and adventure and danger in one breathtaking package. Perfect things didn’t exist.

John realized he had a white-knuckled grip on his towel. “I—“ he began, and then the ornate phone beside the bed made a soft chiming noise. He moved automatically to answer it, his eyes still on Sherlock.

“Ruby Rhod is on his way to escort you to the Diva’s performance,” said the hostess. “Enjoy the show.”

John blew out an exasperated breath. He felt wrung out, his chest tight with unfamiliar emotions and his body heavy with unfulfilled desire. Having to deal with Ruby Rhod just now seemed completely unfair. He took a breath and straightened his shoulders. Such was a soldier’s life. “The Diva’s performance is soon,” he said. “I have to get ready.”

Sherlock went to the closet, examined the row of tuxedos, and drew one out. He unabashedly watched John dress; aside from the discomfort in John’s trousers caused by Sherlock’s heavy-lidded gaze, the suit fit perfectly. Then Sherlock fetched a suit for himself and put on each garment in the same order as John had done. John hadn’t thought he could desire Sherlock more, but seeing that long, lithe body hidden yet defined in crisp black and white made John bite his lip.

He was saved from jeopardizing the mission by a knock on the door; the thought of Ruby Rhod eased John’s libido almost immediately.

“Showtime,” he said, and opened the door.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to UrbanHymnal for a quick beta!

“Wait,” Sherlock said, his hand again on John’s wrist before John could open the door. “I know that I am here by virtue of being your alleged spouse, but I don’t want to talk to the radio man. While he might not recognize me, he could draw the attention of those who will.”

John pinched his lips together, thinking fast. “I don’t know that he’s aware I’m married,” he said. “He sounded more like he was pimping me out to every single girl in the galaxy, actually.”

Sherlock’s mouth quirked at that, his eyes following the line of John’s jacket over his shoulders. John licked his lips, expecting the flash of heat between them yet nearly overwhelmed by it regardless. He was ready for the mission to be over right damned now, because nothing shy of saving the entire universe seemed like a good reason to walk away from the desire darkening Sherlock’s eyes. He meant to walk out the door, truly, but he couldn’t, not without brushing a quick kiss against the the crooked corner of Sherlock’s smile.

“I’ll follow shortly,” Sherlock said. “Best to avoid him completely.”

“Wish I could,” John murmured, and Sherlock’s fingers squeezed his wrist gently, stroking against the tender skin at his cuff before withdrawing. He strode into the bathroom and closed the door.

John braced himself and then stepped into the hall. Rhod and his hangers-on stood in a clump, discussing something that mostly seemed to be about things that were “green,” and John couldn’t help a soft, dismissive sniff. It caught Rhod’s attention and he turned, making a show of giving John the once-over. He waved his hands at his entourage, silencing them instantly, and switched on his headset.

“Aren’t you a tasty morsel!” he cried. “Beings of the Galaxy, how can I describe for you the delectable sight of John Watson in a tuxedo? Let me just say he’s the cream of the crop, because once you see him in a tuxedo there will certainly be cream involved!” He looped his arm through John’s, despite the clear resistance John tried to communicate through his body language.

Rhod paraded him down the hall, describing the hotel and its various guests. As they neared the performance hall he began greeting celebrities and personages, all of whom seemed happy to see him. John tuned out the flow of chatter, instead looking for Sherlock. He didn’t see him in the crowd. Rhod ushered him through the double doors to the theater, his tone booming and dramatic.

“And this,” Rhod declared, “is one of the most beautiful Opera Houses in the universe! It’s a replica of a famous one on Earth, but who cares? On my left, a row of former ministers, more sinister than minister with as much wine as they’ve got in them tonight! On the right, a few generals practicing how to sleep! Before me, Baby Ray drowning in a sea of nymphlets, probably the best part of the concert for him because he’s stone deaf!”

John admired the lush, velvet seating of the performance hall, the vintage lights and decorations, but he still hadn’t spotted Sherlock. He made no effort to hide the fact he searched the crowd, since every being in the room craned their heads around seeking opportunities to meet and greet; he just made sure he had a pleasant expression as he identified bodyguards, waitstaff, and an uncomfortable number of unsecured exits.

“And here we have the Emperor Kodar Japohet, whose daughter recently gave me a very private interview. I love to sing, she confessed,” and then John heard the tinny playback of a woman’s moan echoing in Rhod’s headset. John shook his head and then, finally, spotted Sherlock slipping into a seat near the front. Rhod’s aural assault continued as they made their way to the first row. When they sat, Sherlock was just behind and to the left of John, where John could see him if he pretended to be paying attention to Rhod. Sherlock caught John’s eye and gave him the barest wink, and then turned his attention to the stage.

The lights lowered, and the audience quieted. The curtains opened to reveal the Diva, centered before floor-to-ceiling windows that showcased the ship’s slow ascent from cloud and sky to stars. A spotlight switched on. The Diva stood in a ball gown tinted the same pale blue as her skin. A thick horn curved from the back of her head in a perfect spiral, and long tentacles framed her face. Her face, unveiled only every ten years, was suffused with emotion, her expression soulful and radiant. The music swelled and she began to sing.

John never could have imagined that music could make him feel like this. His chest grew warm, as though it had filled with light, and he felt the familiar press of grief against his breastbone, but also something else. Something sweet despite the edge of loss, soft yet with a vibrancy that made his skin tight. He glanced over at Sherlock and saw tears glistening on his cheeks; he realized then that his own cheeks were wet.

He looked back to the stage. The Diva’s eyes widened. A shudder ran through her frame and out of the corner of his eye he saw Sherlock startle in his seat. He turned to see Sherlock peering sharply around the theater. John looked around but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Sherlock, however, caught John’s eye, gave him a meaningful look, and then slipped out of his seat. John didn’t know what he was supposed to understand from Sherlock’s glance and he shifted uncertainly, wondering if he should follow, or if Sherlock just needed the loo.

Just then, the unearthly beauty of the Diva’s song changed in key and tempo, and she tipped her head forward and practically howled a glorious arpeggiated scale, the notes ascending well beyond the abilities of any human throat. She danced, her long arms mirroring the graceful sway of her tentacles, her hands and fingers fluttering shapes. John couldn’t look away.

The Diva finished, triumphant, and the room burst into applause. The audience leapt to its feet, cheering and crying and completely overwhelmed. The Diva accepted the outpouring of emotion serenely, her smile welcoming and happy.

The unmistakable percussion of gunfire suddenly cut through the noise, and the screams of adulation became those of terror. John ducked for cover, automatically pulling the squalling Ruby Rhod along with him. John peeked over the back of the seats, seeing a mix of armed waitstaff working their way through the crowd. At first he thought they were security, but it became clear that they were not human when they began to shake off their disguises. Their ugly faces left no doubts as to their species and John’s eyes narrowed. Looked like the Mangalores had come to finish the job they began when they destroyed the Mondoshawan ship. He had to find Sherlock.

A long, low moan caught his attention. The Diva remained onstage, her hands pressed to her abdomen. She held them out, shaking and stained blue with blood, then collapsed, center stage, in a perfect swoon. John scrambled forward and dragged her down over the lip of the stage to the floor of the front row. The desire to find Sherlock still burned through him, a kind of tugging feeling trying to pull him out of the performance hall and in search of his friend, but he quashed it: he was first and foremost a doctor. He pressed his coat to the wound to staunch the flow of bright blood, and the Diva cried out.

The irregular bursts of gunfire told John that time was running out. Rhod gibbered a description of the Mangalores into his headset—“totally hideous! A crest on their head and big toad eyes, and they smell!”—and John, knowing that Sholto was undoubtedly listening to the radio broadcast, hoped that reinforcements could reach them before the Mangalores got to the ship’s control room.

The Diva’s eyes fluttered. “No, stay with me,” John said. “I’m a doctor, it’s going to be all right.” He dug in his pocket for the tiny med kit he always carried, but the Diva shook her head. “It’s too late for me,” she said. “This is my fate.”

“I don’t believe in fate,” John said.

The Diva gave him a soft smile. Her teeth were dark with blood. “You’re a good man,” the Diva murmured. “He was right to choose you.”

“Who?” John asked, though who else could it be?

“The Fifth Element. The Supreme Being, sent to save the Universe from evil,” and then she coughed, wet and choking, and blood soaked into John’s jacket. “You must give him the stones.”

“You can do that yourself,” John said, but she knew the truth and so did he. Two Mangalores approached and John drew his gun from where it rested at the small of his back and shot them before they got any closer.

The Diva kept speaking, and John almost missed her words as he scanned the room. The Mangalores slowly herded the hostages out of the performance hall, but in the chaos none had yet noticed John or the two he’d shot. “He needs your help, and your love,” the Diva said. “He is more fragile than he seems.” She coughed again. “You must anchor him, give him something to live for. He was created to protect life, not to live it. If you want him to live, you must teach him how to love!”

“If I want him to live—what do you mean? What’s going to happen to him?” The Diva did not answer, her face contorted in a rictus of pain. Her eyes closed.

“Wait, wait,” John said, leaning in. “Where are the stones?”

Her eyes opened and she raised a hand to John’s cheek. “In me,” she whispered, and died.


End file.
